Tag Archives: #Union Street

Subject and Photographer

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Me, 1949. My father is reflected in the mirror.

This shot was taken in our living room in the parsonage of St. John’s Congregational Church in Springfield, Mass.  I just noticed the reflection of my father taking the picture last night. I looked everywhere for that teapot in later years but it was lost in one of the various moves. It was blue with a gold design over it.  The couch was with us for many years.  Eventually the cushions were covered in reddish leather, or something like it. I remember that table, which was also around for a long time. And those little plastic records my sister and I used to play on our little phonograph.

Bringing this back from August 2011 for this weeks Sepia Saturday prompt showing a mirror and the reflection of the photographer. If only I had a rose behind my ear like Billie Holiday.

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The Thief of Baghdad and a Negative Inverted

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When I saw the theme for this weeks Sepia Saturday was film, I wanted to post a photo from a movie I remember wandering into one evening when I was about 4.  We lived in St. John’s Congregational Church parsonage/community house in Springfield, Massachusetts where my father was pastor. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the movie.  I remember waking up from my nap and going down the hall to a big room where the movie was being shown.  There I saw a larger then life, green genie coming horrifyingly out of a bottle. Perhaps it was “The Thief of Bagdad“, released in 1940. By 1950 it could have been available for showing in darkened rooms full of folding chairs to community groups.  I did not stick around after the Genie started coming out of the bottle.

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However, this movie is not sepia and it’s not from my family photo stash, so I kept looking.  Finally I remembered finding an envelope of negatives (film)  of me, my bear, Beatrice, and my grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr.  They were taken in the Summer of 1948 in our backyard.

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Past is Present – Springfield Massachusetts 1948 – 1950

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Here are three combined photographs using Google Images with photographs of my family superimposed on them.  I am participating in World Photography Day on August 19, through the Family Curator website with these photos.

 
This a photograph of my mother, Doris Graham Cleage, standing on the porch of the parsonage at 210 King Street.  This was taken in 1946, Several months after I was born.
 
St. John’s Congregational Church on the corner of Union and Hancock Streets in Springfield, Mass. My father, Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr, is sitting on the porch. This was around 1948.
 
The last photo was taken on the Community house/parsonage that we lived in after the house on King Street was sold. I am on the left, a little girl from church is in the middle and my sister Pearl is on the right.  This was taken in 1950 soon before we moved to Detroit.

Winter of 1949 -Springfield, Mass

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I’m in the front, my mother is propping up my sister Pearl.  My father took the photo in our yard.  He was the pastor of St. John’s Congregational Church in Springfield Massachusetts and we lived in the parsonage/community house right next to the church.  We moved to my parents hometown, Detroit, when I was four where we still had plenty of snow.

These photographs are in a crumpling album that my father put together back in the 1940’s.  He wrote comments on all the photographs. I have to photograph or scan them before they disappear.

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