For this year’s April A-Z Challenge I will be blogging everyday using items taken from the letters written by my grandfather to my grandmother from 1907 to 1912, starting with “A” and moving right through the alphabet to “Z” during April.

“June 27, 1909 (On board the Steamer “Eastern States” – Lake Erie)
This is Sabbath night about 10:00 o’clock and we are about six hours ride out of Detroit and about twelve miles from land in the shortest direction.

Surroundings are such as to impress one with his insignificance and emphasize the fact that he is indeed kept by Jehovah’s care. I shall first endeavor to acquaint you with the boat on which I am working. It’s name is “The Eastern States” and runs from Detroit to Buffalo. We leave Detroit one day at 5 PM and arrive in Buffalo the next morning at 8 o’clock, staying in Buffalo all day we leave again for Detroit in the Evening at 5 pm. You see we spend one day in Detroit and one in Buffalo. Today we were in Detroit and would it interest you to know how I spent it? Well, if it will interest you; after breakfast was over about 9 am, I went down to our “quarters” (I suppose you have only a faint conception of what that word means – I describe it later.) and slept until 11:30 – served lunch, after which Aldridge and I walked up town for about 2 hours – smoked some cigars, came back to the boat and took a couple of hours more of sleep. So you see I am putting in plenty of time sleeping. This stuff I’m sure does not interest you and I will not bore you longer but as I promised to say something about our “quarters”

It is one large room about 35 x 40 ft. in which are 32 beds – just think of it!! Those beds or better bunks are arranged in tiers of three and I at the present time am sitting on my bed (the top one) and there are two other fellows below me. What ventilation we get comes through six small port holes the diameters of which are about 6 in.

The fellows are a cosmopolitan aggregation, men from everywhere and at any time you can hear arguments and discussions on all subjects – Sensible and nonsensible. There are several students on board – boys from Howard University, Wilberforce University, Oberlin University, Michigan, and Indiana and out of them there are some very fine fellows to know…  I could talk all night about the desirable and the non-desirable features of my Steamboat experience…”

You can read an earlier and more complete post about the Steamer Eastern States here.

For this year’s April A-Z Challenge I will be blogging everyday using items taken from the letters written by my grandfather to my grandmother from 1907 to 1912, starting with “A” and moving right through the alphabet to “Z” during April.

Will write a letter this P.M.
6/20/09
Arrived in Detroit yesterday at 4:00PM, and left for Buffalo via “Eastern States” Steamer on which I am at work at 5.  Was lucky.  Am well – found two old school friends on same boat.

A.B.C.

My grandfather had gone from Indianapolis to Detroit to get a summer job as a waiter on one of the steamers that went between Detroit and Indianapolis. He was successful and had even found several friends who were medical students at other schools who would also be working on the steamer with him.  It was a good way to earn money for school. Some worked as porters or waiters on passenger trains.

In 1910, just a year later, Detroit’s population reached 465,766. 5,741 (1.2%) were African American.  Cass Technical High School graduated it’s first class of 6 students. Other high schools were Central (located in what is now Old Main on the campus of Wayne State University), Eastern and Western.

Detroit History   “During the early 1900s Detroit was referred to as the Paris of the West for its beautiful gilded age architecture, and Washington Boulevard, which was electrified by Thomas Edison. Detroit emerged as a transportation hub and a growing manufacturing city which prompted Henry ford to build his first automobile in a rented workshop on Mack Avenue. Ford Motor Company was soon to follow in 1904. Other auto manufacturers such as William C. Durant, the Dodge brother, Packard, and Walter Chrysler further reinforced Detroit as the world’s automotive capital and giving it the nickname the Motor City.”

For this year’s April A-Z Challenge I will be blogging everyday using items taken from the letters written by my grandfather to my grandmother from 1907 to 1912, starting with “A” and moving right through the alphabet to “Z” during April.

May 27, 1910

My dear Sweetheart:

…Had I known you were coming back to evening services would not have gone visiting – I went to Bethel Church Monday night to a musical- Messrs. Lewis and Thompson each sang a solo and also Mrs. Maud Beatty and Miss Myrtle Broadie each sang a solo and the two a duet – I didn’t enjoy program much, Wednesday I also attended the state convention of the federation of women at Baptist church. Program was fair – do you think you can go with me to our church June 7th or were you joking?  Have you seen the comet yet? I really have this time…

The Return of Halley’s Comet.  “What’s more, this particular pass of the comet (in 1910) was an especially close one. The comet came within 14 million miles (21 million km) of Earth at one point during its May approach, and Earth briefly passed through the tail of the comet. This, of course, was amazing for scientists, allowing them to study many details of the comet ‘up close’ as it were. The close pass was reportedly spectacular in the sky, the comet easily visible.

The downside of this close pass and the new observations made was that a panic briefly overtook much of the world’s population. Scientists had noticed a poisonous gas known as cyanogen that was present in the composition of the tail, and while they assured the public that the gas would be much too diffuse to have any effect during Earth’s pass through the tail, many people still panicked and assumed the worst. In addition, the comet was connected to several events that it could not possibly have caused, such as the death of King Edward VII in England and the death of Mark Twain. This brief hysteria faded when the Earth passed through the comet’s tail without problems, but many people were coerced into buying expensive comet protections or otherwise suffered from the panic.”

For this year’s April A-Z Challenge I will be blogging everyday using items taken from the letters written by my grandfather to my grandmother from 1907 to 1912, starting with “A” and moving right through the alphabet to “Z” during April.

3/8/09

Miss Reed: – I found your book today and fearing you might need it, will bring it to you Wed Eve at 8 p.m. unless notified that you do not need or desire it.

A.B. Cleage

What was the book that my grandfather wanted to return?  When I knew my grandmother she read or had read many books, including Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undsett, who I was named after. But that wasn’t published for decades.  It doesn’t sound like a novel because why would she “need” a novel? Of course, it may have been a ruse to get to see her and he knew she didn’t need it. Here are some books that were popular in 1906 and 1907.

There were many articles in African American newspapers at that time about Booker T. Washington and W.E. B. DuBois so maybe it was The Negro in the South by Booker T. Washington and W.E. Burghardt DuBois. Or maybe it was one of the novels of the time:The Jungle by Sinclair Lewis about the horrors of the meat packing industry in Chicago. Perhaps it was a hymnal or other book of songs because Pearl D. Reed sang in the church choir and at other community events. Beyond the Rocks is a 1906 novel by Elinor Glyn, which was later adapted into a 1922 silent film in which Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino. In the Days of the Comet (1906) is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells in which humanity is “exalted” when a comet causes “the nitrogen of the air, the old azote,” to “change out of itself” and become “a respirable gas, differing indeed from oxygen, but helping and sustaining its action, a bath of strength and healing for nerve and brain.” The result: “The great Change has come for evermore, happiness and beauty are our atmosphere, there is peace on earth and good will to all men.”