Three in a Wagon 1951

Grahams, memories, sepia saturday, , ,

 On the back of the photograph my grandmother, Fannie (aka Nanny), wrote “Barbara Lynne 3, Pearl Michelle 2, Kristin Graham 4.  May 30 – 1951.  This was snapped by DeeDee.”

This photo was taken in my grandparents backyard. We spent most Saturdays back then at Nanny’s and Poppy’s playing with our cousins.   On the left end of the wagon is my cousin Barbara holding a cowboy boot and a toy gun. In the middle is my sister Pearl who is writing madly.  I am on the right end holding a doll and looking worried.  My sister grew up to be a writer.  I grew up to have 6 children. If only cousin Barbara had grown up to ride bucking broncos or live on a ranch or rob banks, the mirroring of the future would have been complete.  This photograph was taken by Barbara’s older sister, Dee Dee who was 7 years old at the time.

Front: Barbara, Pearl. Back: Dee Dee the photographer, Poppy, Kristin

For more old photos, with or without dolls, click on the picture below.

The Hat

Cleages, sepia saturday
Unknown woman #1 and unknown woman #2 (who is leaning just a little too close to my grandfather.), my grandfather Albert, my grandmother Pearl. 1910.

My grandparents, Albert and Pearl (Reed) Cleage were married in October of 1910 in Indianapolis, Indiana. For their honeymoon they went to the Appalachian Exposition in Knoxville, Tennessee and from there to visit my grandfather’s people in Athens, Tennessee.  After returning home, they went to Decatur, Illinois to decide if that was where my grandfather wanted to practice medicine.  One of my aunts told me that this photo was taken at a medical convention they attended soon after their marriage.  Perhaps it was in Decatur.

Thanks to a comment below by Tattered and Lost I found that the location of the photograph was actually Mt. Vernon, VA at George Washington’s plantation. I will be posting more about this soon.

At any rate, the women are all wearing hats, although none are quite so fancy as the one in this weeks prompt.  To see other hat wearing women, men and babies plus several posts completely unrelated to hats, click on the picture below.

To see the 10 minute movie “The New York Hat” (1912) that the prompt came from, follow this link –  “The New York Hat.”

My best find of 2011

Allen, Eliza, ,

Even though it’s now Sunday night so I’m 24 hours late, I decided to do the Saturday Night challenge.  The question on Genea-Musings Saturday Night Genealogy fun  was to decide which of my genealogy research adventures in 2011 was my “very best” and to write about it.

My most exciting find of 2011 was discovering a newspaper article that validated my family’s oral history that my great great grandmother, Eliza Allen and her daughter Mary came off of the plantation of Colonel Edmund Harrison.  My cousin Margaret and I looked for years for something to prove the connection without any luck.   You can read all about it in my blog post here.  My only regret is that Margaret is no longer here to share my find.

"McCall family"
Mary Allen McCall with son James and his wife Margaret. Front row - his daughters Victoria and Margaret. Detroit about 1924.

My Mother and Bonzo 1933 – Sepia Saturday #107

Grahams, sepia saturday

Doris Graham and Bonzo 1933

My grandfather wrote in his little notebook in 1940,

“Bonzo taken away by
Humane Society Sept. 3rd 1940                                                                                                 $1.00 donation made.                                                                                                                 This dog was about 12 years old.”

In this photograph my mother, Doris was 10 years old. Bonzo must be about 5.  They are in the backyard of my grandparents house on the east side of Detroit.  Bonzo was an outside dog and had a place under the porch to sleep and get out of the weather. He went through the cold winters there. When he was taken away by the Humane Society he was suffering terribly from rheumatism.

Before my mother’s family had Bonzo, they had a dog named Toodles.  Toodles was allowed in the house sometimes because once, when there was company and he was in the basement, he fell down the steps and, as I remember the story, broke his neck. Which is why Bonzo always stayed in the yard.

For more fine old photographs, some of girls and animals, click on the link below.

"Angora rabbit and girl"

I have a little problem in “Design”…

Cleages, Letters, , , ,

This letter should have come before the previous post where my father writes about lecturing on his Design Theory. “Gravi” is his younger sister, Gladys who was an art student at Wayne State University in Detroit at the time.  Below is a strip photograph of all the Cleages, the house on Scotten in Detroit and my parents and their apartment in LA.  This is how they looked at the time the letters were written and how they were identified in the letters.  If you click it, it will enlarge and you can enlarge it again which makes it big enough to see.

"The Cast"

2130 s. Hobart Blvd. #4
Los Angeles 7, California
December 20, 1944

My dear Gravi:

I have a little problem in “Design” for you to work out for me during the Christmas vacation. (If your hectic love-life and gadding about permits of the time.) ‘taint very important, if you’re too busy.

I want you to work out some little designs (like the one you did breaking down the picture into abstract lines and masses for your first course in design…remember…you used show-card paint.

I have developed a “theory” of graphic design which I would like to illustrate.  It goes as follows. All design is based upon the principle of dialectic tension and progression…moving (just as Marxian social-change…remember social-causation) from THESIS to ANTITHESIS to SYNTHESIS and BACK TO A NEW THESIS.  I want abstract designs to illustrate the three stages of development and two to illustrate the proper transition between them.  I will describe just what to do to design each stage as follows:

THESIS represents security…peace…calm…status-quo…the power of order… stability …etc.  It is essentially unpleasant unless you are somewhat akin to a clod. It represents the Middle-class ideal…the bourgeois unconscious.  it is usually used in picture of New England churches etc…There is balance…with the emphasis upon spaciousness (figures are not compactly massed)…and HORIZONTAL LINES combined with VERTICAL LINES (both boldly done. THERE ARE NO CURVES OR DIAGONAL! There can be a soft triangle but not too conspicuous (like the spire atop a church which is essentially a HORIZONTAL.  ALL LINES AND MASSES indicate the STATIC QUALITY…EVERYTHING HAS TO COME TO REST!  ALL DIVIATIONS HAVE BEEN SQUASHED! Simple isn’t it.  You can find a picture of this sort and break it down into an abstraction if you like or just build up the abstraction.

ANTITHESIS represents REVOLT against the THESIS. It is done with diagonals (not triangles) Bold diagonals form the basis of design.  Small contradictory diagonals probably in the foreground add to the general confusion.  The confusion, however, is orderly because it is a design BUT EVERYTHING GIVES THE FEELING OF REVOLT or ANTITHESIS.  Picture of the CITY, INDUSTRY, WAR, and POVERTY are usually designed this way to suggest the underling conflict and revolt.  Do one design representing this stage.

(Inserted handwritten note by my father) “Keep the idea of one basic design merging into the next and then into the next – etc – like a circle – where the design pattern is being changed as taught by external force.”

SYNTHESIS represents the tendency of ANTITHESIS to resolve back into a new THESIS. It is the most pleasant of the three because it is a compromise having something of both. IT has something of the HORIZONTALS AND VERTICALS of the THESIS, and the DIAGONALS  of the ANTITHESIS have all bee softened into CURVES.  It is not so spacious as the THESIS nor so compact as the ANTITHESIS.  Most rural scenes are SYNTHESIS… the rolling countryside..the soft clouds in the sky (curves) and the swaying trees…the cattle in the fields etc. all make for “SYNTHESIS” composition.

The TRANSITION between THESIS and ANTITHESIS would tend to emphasize the TRIANGLE (I think) these transitions are more difficult.  Some of the stability of THESIS is maintained but the suggestion of conflict and revolt DIANGONALS is present in triangles)

The TRANSITION between ANTITHESIS and SYNTHESIS would tend to have softened diagonals which are already becoming CURVES… some would have already become horizontals and verticals (which is the result of spreading out diagonals beyond the point where they result in curves.

Simple isn’t it!  you can find pictures representing each stage in that book of American Paintings… and just break down examples of each.  I think the abstract breakdown would have the same FEELING (emotional effect upon the observer) as the original paintings in spite of the fact that the subject (human interest) has been lost.  Incidentally this is the basis of all abstract painting! and the schools of Modernists (Cubists, Expressionists, etc.) In addition this conception should determine the artist’s rendidtion of any picture.  The style he uses should be determined by the meaning of his subject.  Most artists do it unconsciously but I am now in the process of bringing this great truth out into the open!

I want it for a class in CINEMATIC DESIGN because in the designing of motion pictures this unity of subject matter and graphic design is absolutely necessary…but apparently no one ever discovered it before (or why are they keeping it so secret…or don’t I read the right books!

If you have time to do them let me know.  Put each one on a white cardboard and place the title (thesis, Antithesis, etc.) on each one.  It would be interesting to do them all in BLACK & WHITE…and another set in COLOR (suiting the colors to the basic idea…which I would leave to you) Two sets could be done in black and white REVERSING THE VALUES IN THE SECOND SET (to prove a contention of mine that the tonal pattern is secondary to the linear pattern which would be the same even after the black and white values were reversed.)  THAT WOULD MAKE THREE SETS. LET YOUR TIME BE YOUR GUIDE.  SEND ME A BILL FOR THE MATERIALS. (and I’ll file it away with my other bills)  Don’t take as much time with each as you took with the one you did for yourself…SO LONG AS THE BASIC IDEA IS RENDERED IN ABSTRACT DESIGN I’LL BE HAPPY. To do it myself would take twenty-years or so!

(Note written in my my mother) “Pauvre Gravi!! Beware!!! This Negro loves to see people work!! Signed, Voice of Experience.”

Hi folks: (HAPPY NEW YEAR) Part 2

Cleages, , ,
"Albert B. Cleage"
Albert B. Cleage, Jr

Page two of the New Year Eve letter my father wrote home in 1944.  This part deals with a cinema class he was taking. I will have to post his theory, which he explained in a previous letter home, soon.

Everything is O.K….(pursues its petty pace from day to day etc.) Last week one of my Cinema Professors turned over his class to me and I delivered the lecture of the evening! Honest….I turned in my thesis on CINEMA DESIGN with my own personal theory of HOW and WHY.  He said he didn’t agree with my point of view but insisted that I take the lecture hour to explain my ideas…After I “explained” we argued until after ten o’clock and he asked permission to continue the discussion of my theories next week.  I very graciously granted the permission.  Doris “visited” the class that night.  She has her class Wednesday afternoon from four until six… then we eat supper at the Student Union, usual with Lee and Naomi (whom I have mentioned before)… then she goes to the Library until about eight and then comes over and looks at the picture we have in connection with the class…well Wednesday she got out Soroyan’s book instead of studying her lesson as I had instructed her to do…and came over to the projection room to wait until the picture.  Instead of the usual order the prof. reversed the order and we had the film first…and then the “Lecture” and when he “announced” that I would deliver the lecture she came on into class.  I had to sit on her (practically) to keep her from fighting the man when he tried to disagree with “our” ideas. (Quite a woman!)  (note from my mother written in here: I am not Mary V’s sister for nothing!!  Eh, Barbara!)

Doris Graham Cleage 1944

Well, I guess that’s all the news for the present… We received the BOX.  Thanks!!! There is one thing I want to know…WHO PICKED OUT THOSE “HOLLYWOOD FASHIONS” FOR ME?  THAT NYLON SHIRT…THOSE OUTSIZE TIES WITH THE BOLD DESIGNS!!!! I would presume that Pee-Wee and Gladys picked them out…I can sort of smell their fine Italian hands…THEY ARE JUST WHAT THE “FILM FOLKS” WEAR OUT HERE… fit right in and that…I’m gona put on my shirt and tie and visit the Studios one of these days soon…won’t have no trouble gettin’ in…they’ll think I’m one of the stars.  I ain’t kiddin’ the folks out here go for that flowing Art in dress…and Hollywood leads all the rest.  Everytime one of the men from Hollywood used to visit school to lecture I’d think he was a light Negro who had slipped in…until Moore introduced him as this Director or that Camera-man…etc.

Well so-long

P.S. Is anybody sick?  I dreamed some sort of nightmare this afternoon about somebody being sick…seemed like Louis had something wrong with his hand or something…probably just something I ate.  How is Uncle George?  Tell him we’ll probably see him before next New Years (we hope!)

P.P.S. Junior Doc. – How about a carton of Cigarettes from your black market – Can’t get none hardly here! (Will send cost by return mail!)

*******

My father’s brother Louis at some point in his medical career had to have a skin graft to his finger because of radiation burns he received while giving x-rays. I don’t know when it happened but it would be interesting if it happened around the time of my father’s dream. I will have to see if anyone else remembers. Note: My Aunt Gladys assured us that Louis had injured his hand years before this.

Uncle George was my grandmother Pearl’s oldest brother.  He became sick and moved from Indianapolis to live with my grandparents around this time. Uncle George died in May of 1945 in Detroit.  My father was appointed to St. John’s Congregational Church in August of 1945.  I’m not sure when my parents left Los Angeles but I don’t think it was by May so I doubt my father got to see his Uncle George before he died.

I have a little problem in “Design” December 20, 1944
X is for X-Ray – Story of Louis Cleage’s Puffy Finger
George Reed’s Funeral – May 31, 1945
The Missing Months March to November 1945
Idlewild 1945 – En route to Springfield

Hi Folks: (HAPPY NEW YEAR) – Part 1

Cleages, sepia saturday, , , ,

A letter written home to Detroit by my parents on New Year’s Eve, 1944. My father was studying Cinema with the plan to use it in his ministry in the future.

The inside of the bulletin from the New Year service.

2130 S. Hobart Blvd. #4
Los Angeles 7, California
December 31, 1944

Hi Folks: (HAPPY NEW YEAR)

Well it’s New Year’s Eve…10:25 p.m. here…so we’re waitin’ for the New Year…and its 1:25 a.m. there… so you-all are already into 1945. I suppose you-all had a little Coffee-Ice-Cream and Tuna-fish salad n’ that celebration.. and since Hugh was in for Christmas I suppose Henry was in… leavin’ po’ little Hugh out at Plum Nelly by his lonesome.  We just finished supper and my “worster-half” is stretched out on the couch reading Soroyan’s “Human Comedy”. I can’t remember whether you-all read it or not. If not get it (Barbara) cause it’s good… in its own way.  Henry and Hugh ought to like it.

I preached this morning at the Congregational Church.  The minister, Reverend Galloway went up to some “Snow Mountain” with his young-people for some sort of New Year’s Conference. He asked me sort of late… but Doris made me do it…so I did. We had sort of a time getting ready at the last minute n’ that. Doris had to put my one still presentable suit back together with a needle and thread (they all fell to pieces at the same time) … and press my robe which I haven’t used since leaving Lexington… and I had to “prepare my message” Saturday night. We got to bed about three A.M…and got up at eight-thirty because it takes about an hour to get down off of Sugar-Hill and across town to the East Side…on the Streetcar.

Major Dean assisted me in the Pulpit as a Deacon and introduced me to the Congregation (again). See enclosed Bulletin.  I arrived at 11:03 (late as usual)…Me and the choir rushed in at the same time. (Negroes is Negroes the world over…like Daddy’s Fried Chicken)  The service went very well…and the attendance was very good in spite of the absence of the young-people…bigger crowd than the other times we’ve been present.  I brought them a powerful New Year’s Message (which I will have Doris describe in detail in as much as I’m modest!)  After the service the people were very nice…invited us to the annual church supper and that.  Mrs. Dean was present and threatened to have us over soon.  She said that she’s been ill for the past three months…and has planned to write you-all for lo these many months but… first one thing and then another n’ that.  Her brother Captain York has been sick in the hospital for some several months…but seems to be improving she said.  A young woman and her little son of about six (or so) joined the church under the power of the message and that.  The officers didn’t quite know what to do when they said they wanted to join but we finally fellowshipped them N’ that.  Everyody was very nice but all neglected to mention the customary “HONORARIUM”… which, of course, I didn’t mention…but thought about nevertheless!

(Handwritten note by my mother along the side of the letter:)

Dear Folks, Wish you all could have been at Church this morning.  Toddy preached one of the best sermons he’s ever preached – and that I’ve ever heard.  A very simple theme – Text: “the Kingdom of God comes not with observation; the Kingdom of god is within you” – with his own pecular interpretation and illustration.  It was good.  Thank you for the lovely Christmas presents and a very Happy New Year.

P.S. After the sermon “Montgomery” rose as a body and testified for the reverend.  My aunt Gwen’s cousin from Alabama said, “I have been in Los Angeles six weeks and I belong to the Episcopalian church, but this is the first time since I’ve been here that I really feel like I’ve been to church.”  Amen!

Continues at -> New Year’s Eve 1944 – Part 2
Lincoln Memorial Congregational Church History

Missing Christmas Carols 1944
Christmas Day 1944 – Part 1
Christmas Day 1944 – Part 2
Christmas Day 1944 – Part 3

 For other Fine Sepia Saturday New Year offerings click the postman’s picture —>

Dollhouse Update

dollhouse, I'm a Giant Dollhouse Challenge

"Whole Dollhouse"

"Bathroom"

"Living Room"

After a break from working on the restoration of the dollhouse my grandfather made me I am working on it again. Here are a few photos of what’s been done. For Christmas I received several great items for the house. The plants, the planters, the dollhouse, and the birds decorating the tree are several. I also received a refrigerator made from paper from my friend Michael! You would never think it was put together from paper to look at it.  I have work to do on the kitchen, where the cupboards below will be installed. And the windows, lights and some other curtains have to be completed. Not to mention artwork, a mirror and photographs for the walls have to be done."refridgerator""kitchen cupboards"