Moving – Springfield to Detroit 1951

52 weeks of personal history, sepia saturday, , ,

I was born in Springfield, Massachusetts and lived there until I was almost 5.  We moved in April of 1951 when my father got a church in Detroit, Michigan. Here we are on moving day, my sister and I, with two little girls I knew then but I don’t remember their names.  I have a photo of the oldest girl, my sister and myself, standing on the parsonage porch.  I also have a memory of the oldest girl pouring milk in my dinner, which I wasn’t going to eat anyway, but still… we were sitting at the little table in our room eating. My mother said if I’d eaten it in a timely fashion it wouldn’t have happened.  No sympathy there.  I remember another time when this little girl hit me and my mother told me if I didn’t hit her back, my mother was going to hit me.  I hit her back. Don’t remember that she ever hit me again.  

Me, sisters I cannot remember the names of, my sister Pearl

I saw them one more time, after we moved to Detroit.  In the winter of 1967 my father returned to Springfield to preach for the Men’s Club. I went with him. We also went to New York on this trip where I bought my first pair of bell bottom jeans.  My grandmother was so disappointed that I didn’t get a nice dress.  But that isn’t this story.  I remember the living quarters in the parsonage seemed so small on this trip.  Nobody was living in them at the time. I’m sure the next minister got the congregation to move him back into separate quarters. We stayed with the family of these two girls. I was 20 so they were probably 20 and 18.  The oldest one was going to a party.  Well, actually she wasn’t going to the party, she was going to meet her boyfriend  there and  they were going elsewhere.  Her father had forbidden her to see this boy.  I was never a big party person and I sure didn’t want to be left at a strange party with a bunch of strangers.  Needless to say, I didn’t go. The adults tried to persuade me that it would be “fun”. Ha. I didn’t give away her plan but I didn’t go.  Wish I could remember her name, I’d look her up on facebook and see what she remembers about any of this.

Cleage Family Out for a Ride

Cleages, sepia saturday

I’m bringing this one back for Sepia Saturday this week because the theme has a car from about the same time period, give or take a year or two.  I think my grandmother is wearing the same type hat as the woman who is looking at the car. A later photograph of the same car has “Lexington” written across the back. You can see that one here The Lexington.

"Cleages with car"
Barbara, Albert Jr, Gladys, Anna, Mother Pearl and Father Albert about 1928.

My Aunt Gladys sends word by her daughter  that “It was a Lincoln, could fit all nine plus a dog or two,  the second row faced the back and the back row faced the front. she’s not sure where the photo was taken. It is big ain’t it! must be the precursor to the limo!  She doesn’t think it’s Bell Isle, and it’s not Athens(TN). She thinks it might be the Meadows, that’s the only place with the trees and all the grass. Barbara looks like a miniature flapper!

Sepia Saturday 101

 

Dollhouse update – hardwood floor

dollhouse, I'm a Giant Dollhouse Challenge

I spent some time today cutting up several 12 X 12 inch self-stick “wood”vinyl tiles in to small strips and sticking them on the dollhouse living room floor.  Voila! A hardwood floor. I have a “ceramic” vinyl square for the kitchen. I should cut it up into different sized pieces and lay it our like our floor is, but I might leave it as one piece. I am going to panel one wall in the front room, so tomorrow I’ll cut longer pieces for that.


The roof is going up. The stairs are ready to go in. The plexiglass for the windows has to be cut and the molding that goes around them cut to size and painted. Shutters have to go up. A few interior walls and half walls need to go in. A few walls need to be painted, some touching up and then the furniture and curtains can go in.  I still have to make the dolls that will live there, a pleasant older couple with a bunch of children and grandchildren who live in a box and come out for birthdays and the holidays. Maybe someone will live in the attic.

 

Off The Same Plantation, but Not A Relative

Eliza, ,

Eliza was also owned by Col. Harrison.  Her mother, Annie Williams, was born in Virginia. I am trying to figure out if any information in this article can help me in my research.
The Montgomery Advertiser, Wednesday Morning, November 14, 1917

“Old Charles,” Faithful Servant For Almost a Century, Passes Away

 Charles Leftwich, born into slavery in “Old Virginny,” at Lynchburg in 1831, in early manhood sold to a new master and carried to bondage to Lowndes County, Ala. died here November 7 at four score years and six.  His death was mourned by white and black alike.  He heard the “angel voices calling”, and in death as in life, ever obedient, he answered the call.  In youth, In young manhood, in middle life, and finally while body was bent and head hung low, as those who knew him say, he was loving, faithful, and true.  “Old Charles” is no more, but through the avenue of almost a century he walked among friends he made because of his deeply affectionate nature and entire faithfulness.

Servant of Col. Harrison

As a slave and faithful and devoted servant of Colonel Edmund Harrison, of Lowndes County, when the war broke out Charles was selected by his master as a body guard for the latter’s son-in-law Winston Hunter, when the young man began his service in the Confederate States Army.

Through the blazing heat of Summer, in the sleet, slush, ice, and bitter winds of Winter, for four long and trying years, while the confederacy’s fortunes lay in the troubled balance of the great Civil War, steadfast and true the faithful negro served his warrior master.  It was but natural that a peculiarly strong affection bound the two together, a bond of attachment none the less strong because of any difference of color, it is said.

Return To Old Home

After the war and Charles was free, he returned to the plantation of Colonel Harrison as to his natural home, and there remained until the death of the older master.  Throughout the trying days of the reconstruction immediately following the war there was no change in the former slave.  Day and night he remained true to those who had been good to him, an every ready protector of the women and children in the times that tried men’s souls.

Sorrow stricken after the death of others to whom he was so attached, after the death of “ol morster”, Charles came to Montgomery.  Events changed others – but not Charles, for into life, in ease and in plenty, in privation and in misery, this man with a black skin but a spotless character plodded his humble way as nobly within the city’s gates as he had for many years out where the birds twittered and the balm of the Southern sunshine itself ever the silken corn and fields of snowy cotton.

Served in Kessler Family

About ten years before his death “old Charles” began service with Mr. And Mrs. W.D.C. Kessler.  He soon became so attached to the Kesslers’ first born, then a baby boy, that he was installed as a nurse.  Then this splendid character proved as good a nurse as the gentlest woman.  To other boys were born to the Kesslers, and as each came Charles took him in charge, and guarded them as only he could do.  all of the children were devoted to him and his pride and affection for them were beautiful evidences of his own great goodness.  He wold often say that it was his only desire that he should live long enough for “his boys” to remember him so well that never would they forget him.  That this wish is daily gratified there are several who will attest.

Dollhouse Fireplace and the Real Thing

dollhouse, I'm a Giant Dollhouse Challenge

This dollhouse is turning out to have features from several of our real houses. Yesterday I made a fireplace modeled after the fireplace in our Idlewild house.  I still need to add the mantel and the picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe and logs, of course.

I used a modeling compound made from toothpaste, white glue, corn starch and water. I got the color with food coloring added to the compound and then rubbed some paint that we used to do the dollhouse roof to make it look more stone like.  And threw in a few real ashes for realism.

Jim has been painting and cutting and nailing and there will be more photos soon.

Bigger Photos!

Wordless Wednesday,

Yesterday I received a very important hint in the comment section from Angella Lister of 37 Paddington.  She suggested that I post my photographs larger. I responded that I had tried but they would overlap the other column if I made them x-large. She pointed out that I could make the columns wider by going to design/columns. Voila, bigger columns and bigger photos! I’ve spent today going back to older posts and enlarging the photographs.  I love it!

Me at age 3, 1949.  Photograph taken by Henry Cleage.

 

Interview with Henry Cleage about the Freedom Now Party

Cleages, ,

After writing about politics in my childhood yesterday, I remembered this interview I did with Henry in 1993 about the Freedom Now Party and decided to run it today.  Scroll down for an easier to read transcription of the article. There are several corrections.  Did I not fact check in those days?!

This article first appeared in 1993 in “Umoja * Unidad *Unity, A Newsletter for Homeschoolers of Color”

Our Stories

Freedom Now Party – 1963 – 1964

In the last several weeks black “leaders” have been speaking out against the treatment of Lani Guinier while at the same time saying they had to stick with the Democratic Party because “there’s nowhere else to go.” Aside from the obvious answer that they could go fishing and do the Race less harm, it brought to mind 1964, the year the Freedom Now Party got on the ballot in Michigan.  I was a freshman at Wayne State University that year.  The year before, the six children (Correction: 4 girls were killed, not 6) had been murdered during Sunday school in Birmingham, Alabama and over 100,000 had marched through downtown Detroit in protest. (Correction: the march took place before the bombing.) The March on Washington had taken place. The movement against the war in Vietnam was growing.  That summer, one of the first riots had rocked New York and the Freedom Democrats from Mississippi were not seated at the Democratic Convention.  Malcom X had spoken in Detroit at the Grass Roots Conference.  Ossie Davis, James Baldwin, Odetta and others called for a boycott of Christmas gift buying to protest the violence in the south.  Atty. Henry Cleage, along with family members and several friends had put out the Illustrated News for four years.  It was a biweekly Black Nationalist paper that was distributed through churches, baber shops and other places black people gathered.  Recently, I asked him to tell me about the founding of the Freedom Now Party.

Interview – Henry Cleage

Kristin: Henry, I’ve been trying to remember how the Freedom Now Party started.

Henry: Well, do you remember Worthy?  William Worthy was in New York with those two brothers, I can’t remember their names, and they started talking about the Freedom Now Party.  That was about the time the group in Detroit began to be black and quit trying to integrate.  I remember sitting in my office talking about it.  The question everyone had, you know, there weren’t enough Negroes to win.  The answer that was being made by Rev. (Note: Rev. A.B. Cleage Jr.) was you can’t win anyway.  The point was you could punish the Democratic Party.  And that’s the way it started. Then they sent Worthy and those two brothers, they were all over New York hollering about freedom, they came and we started the Freedom Now Party.

The important thing about it, I think, was after all that, it was supposed to be nationwide, but Michigan was the only place it got on the ballot.  Getting on the ballot in different states had different rules. In Michigan we had the Struther sisters and Boggs and one or two others.  You had to get so many names from different counties – so they went up to the counties and got them.  You know the way women will do, they just do stuff.  And, of course, they had yours truly pointing out the laws and stuff – they did it and they got on the ballot.  Of course they stole all our votes though.

Dunbar worked at the county building.  He got drunk at one of the parties and he said, “If you knew what they did with your votes…!”

You know, the votes come in at night.  It was on the radio.  The Freedom Now Party had 40,000 votes. Next day, they didn’t have but about 200, you know.

He, Dunbar, said, “If you knew what happened to your votes, you would really be drugged!”

I said, “Well, you’re black, tell us what happened.”

“No, no, I’m not gonna mess up my job.” And, of course, he wouldn’t tell.

The FNP had challengers at the precinct, but Dunbar worked down at headquarters, at the Clerks office, where the votes would come in.  I don’t know if we could have had somebody down there we didn’t.  The votes came there from all over the state.  There were Flint votes and Grand Rapids and…I remember that night they reported so many votes for the Freedom Now Party, on the radio, and we figured out that it was 5%, which means you get on the ballot next year without getting the petitions.  The next morning they said we didn’t have 1/2 of a percent.

Kristin:  Did the Freedom Now Party just go to pieces after that?

Henry: Yes.  After that it generally fell to pieces.  I think it finally dawned on everybody, like it dawned on me with the court case, we aren’t going to do anything quoting law here. Like Lani Guiner.  She said something with a whole lot of sense to it, you know, and they act like she’s crazy.

For another post – The Freedom Now Party Convention.

To read more about Lani Guinier and the 1993 controversy read “‘Quota Queen’ or Misquoted Queen?”.

Politics – Earliest Memories 1952

Biography, Cleages, Detroit, ,

Week 46. Politics. What are your childhood memories of politics? Were your parents active in politics? What political events and elections do you remember from your youth?

My sister  and I – 1952
 

My first memory of politics is the 1952 presidential campaign.  My parents supported Adlai Stevenson and I remember waking up the day after the election and asking who won.  I was quite disappointed when I found it was not Stevenson.  

For more about my family and politics, click on these – 1965 Cleage for Congress and Elections Past.

Dollhouse update

dollhouse
Sanded and spackled.
Roof and rafters.
Rafters notched and in place.

Hopefully it’ll get a coat or two of  paint tomorrow. Maybe Monday the floors will get done.  I’ve got to decide where the inside walls and the stairs will go.

A brass bed that I got this week because…

It looks like the brass bed that Poppy bought soon after he married.  He was, the story goes,  he was walking down the street when he saw a brothel being evicted and the belongings being set out on the street.  This wonderful brass bed was among the items and he bought it on the spot. Growing up we – sister and cousins – spent many happy hours playing in my grandfather’s room. We used to be able to slip between those brass bars at the foot of the bed.  My sister Pearl has the big bed now.  That’s my mini brass bed on the pillow.

Veteran’s Day – James E. Williams

Williams
James E. Williams. Coast Guard 1964. 

His brother, Harold, always calls my husband, James, on Veterans Day.  Harold said that it was a long time ago and the memories almost don’t bother him now. Almost.  Harold’s hands still bleed sometimes from the Agent Orange. Both agreed they’d take “Option B” if they had it to do over again.