Jilo 1972

Williams,

I came across this photograph of my oldest daughter, Jilo, while organizing my photographs. I like the shadows.  This one was in the box marked “Detroit 1966 – 1972”.  We were living in Brewster projects.  I was teaching pre-k at Merrill Palmer Institute, which was within walking distance.  I didn’t drive and walked or took the bus everywhere.  Jim was there part of the time.  He was a community organizer, still running the Black Conscience Library and also working out of a center on 12th Street.  I wasn’t yet pregnant with my second daughter and hadn’t decided to move to Atlanta, where my sister lived.  A year later in March, I would have two daughters and all of us would be living in Atlanta.  I worked with the Institute of the Black World for awhile.  Jim got a job printing with the Atlanta Voice. When he told me I could stop working outside,  I gave notice and stayed home with my six week old and almost three year old.  It was all a long time ago.

Poppy Was Cool – 1916

Grahams, sepia saturday

My sister recently found a stash of old family photos that she had forgotten she had.  She was nice enough to bring them over to me to add to the collection.  Among those photographs were these of my maternal grandfather, Mershell C. Graham called Poppy by us.  When these photos were made, he was Shell and apparently quite dapper.

In the first picture we see him perched on a fence with a tower in the background.  It looks sort of like a  bell tower.

In the next photo MC seems to be holding an umbrella and wearing tails.  On the other hand it looks like it’s pretty big for an umbrella. In the back is a wooden fence, but not the same one as in the tower photo. There are several people walking up and down the street too.

In the third photo my grandfather is swinging in the woods.  In the background there is something that could be a house or other building.

These photos were  around 1916 in Montgomery, Alabama. I think.

The last photo I include because they are such a cool looking couple. I know nothing beyond they were my grandfather’s friends.

For other Sepia Saturday entries with towers in them, click HERE.  Other posts about my MC Graham:  The Proposal,  The Proposal Accepted, Poem for Poppy,  Mershell’s Notebook and Poppy Could Fix Anything.

Trains – My Grandparents Mystery Tour

Cleages, sepia saturday,

I don’t know where my grandparents were going in these photographs from the 1950s.  They were traveling with a group.   I know they started in Detroit and ended up back in Detroit. In between they seem to have gone to the sea shore, the far west and possibly places in between.  For other train related (or not) posts, click Sepia Saturday.

My grandmother is on the far right of the first photo.

My grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage in the middle, next to her my dapper grandfather.

At a band shell.

Stage coach.

My grandmother after vanquishing the bull in the ring. Or....?

On a battery somewhere? Grandparents at right.

My grandparents on each end. Back on the train.

Canning With Aspirin Instead of Sugar – Front page story

Reeds

Recently I have had great luck finding important family information in online newspapers.  I had not used Ancestry’s newspaper collection for a long time because it was so awkward to use.   Imagine my surprise when I noticed there was a tab right up there with ‘Historical Records’ and ‘Family Trees’ called ‘Stories and Publications’.  I decided to put in a few names and see what I could find.   I found little items of arrests, obituaries, marriages and the article below about how my Grandmother Pearl’s sister, Sarah Reed Busby, got around the lack of sugar during WW 2 by using aspirin to can her berries.  I had just heard about this article from a cousin I met several weeks ago and there it was on my computer!  I took a break in the middle of writing this post to go look again and found a photograph of Robert Chivis, who I had no photo of previously. Robert is the grandson of another sister of my grandmother Pearl.

All Around Our Town
Canning Tip–Use Aspirin!

Did you ever hear of putting up fruit with aspirin?  Mrs. Sarah Busby, 1238 Broadway, a first-rate colored cook of many years’ experience, is doing it and doing it successfully.  She has the sugar rationing on canning licked, for no sugar is needed.

Her method is this: sterilize the glass jars, pack them full of rasberrries, and on the top of each pint drop one aspirin tablet.  Fill the jar with water that has been chilled ice-cold in the refrigerator, and seal quickly.  No cooking is needed.

This method, which Mrs. Busby discovered some time ago as a canning tip in a newspaper, is recommended for strawberries.  She also has used it effectively on both red and black rasberries and is contemplating trying it out on dew berries.

The fruit retains its shape and color without becoming mushy, and while the taste is a little on the tart side its flavor is true to the fruit.

Mrs. Busby’s cooking experience has included 28 years at the Washington resort, where she annually canned around 500 jars of fruit jams, jellies, and pickles every summer.

When pharamcist Jack Brown of the Battlement Drug company was asked about the chemical reaction of aspirin on raspberries he said it was o.k.  It’s the acetylsalicylic (you say it) acid in asprin that acts as a germicide and stops fermentation.

Mrs. Busby insists that the water on the berries must be very, very cold.  She says not to be alarmed when the water on the aspirin “riles it up” for that settles down after sealing.  For a quart of fruit, she uses two aspirin.

Right this way, ladies – no more headaches over the canning season!

Poems by James E. McCall

Grahams, poetry & literature,

The first poem was written on the death of Howard Graham, my grandparent’s youngest son.  He died in 1932 from complications of scarlet fever. You can read more about it here My Grandmother’s Loss.  James McCall and my grandmother Fannie were first cousins, their mothers were sisters.


Good-night, Little Pal

Little pal, do you know how we miss you,
Since you journeyed into the West?
Once again in dreams we kid you,
And press you close to our breast.

Your hair was bright as the sunshine,
Your voice like the music of birds,
Your eyes were blue as the heavens,
And your smile too precious for words.

Goodnight, little pal; sleep sweetly
Till the dawn of the morning light;
May the angels of God watch o’er you–
Good-night, little pal, good-night.

In memory of Howard A. Graham,
By his pal, J.E.M.(James Edward McCall)
3/5/32

_________________________

The second poem is transcribed from the page of poems in my grandmother’s scrapbook. She pasted one thing over another, sometimes obscuring the original items on the page. The clippings are browning and fragile.

Winter in St. Antoine by James McCall
(In The Detroit Saturday Night)

In St. Antoine the snow and sleet
Whiten and glaze the drab old street
And make the snow-clad houses gleam
Like crystal castles in a dream.
There, many swarthy people dwell;
To some, ’tis heaven, to others,   hell!
To me the  street seems like a movie stage
Where Negro play and stars engage.
They laugh and love and dance and sing
While waiting the return of spring.
Some drown their heart-aches deep
In winter time on St. Antoine.

There, on the gutters frozen brink
A dope-fiend lies, with eyes that blink
And from a neighboring cabaret
come sounds of song and music gay.
At windows, tapping, here and there,
Sit dusky  maidens  young and fair,
With painted cheeks  and brazen eyes.
and silk clad legs crossed to the thigh
Upon the icy pavements wide,
Gay brown-faced children laugh and slide
While tawny men in shiny cars
Drive up and down the street like   czars.

Into a  church across the way
There goes a bridal party gay.
While down the street like a prairie-fire,
Dash a  bandit car and a cruising flyer.
Around the corner whirls a truck,
An old coal-peddler’s horse is struck;
The horse falls on the frozen ground,
The dark blood spouting from its wound.
A motley crowd runs to the scene;
A woman old, from shoulders lean,
Unwraps a quilt her hands have pieced
And spreads it o’er the shivering beast.

Among the swarthy folk who pass
Among the slippery street of glass,
Are some in furs and  some in rags;
Lovely women, wretched hags,
White-haired  migrants from the South;
Some wrapped in blankets, pipes in mouth;
Some smile while others seem to shiver,
As though they   long for Swanee River;
But though they dream with tear wet eyes
Of cotton-fields and sunny skies.
They  much prefer the heaven and hell
On St Antoine, where free men dwell.

______________________________

Jo Mendi was a famous chimpanzee at the Detroit Zoo.

You can read more about McCall in this post – James Edward McCall, Poet and Publisher.

James Edward McCall, Poet and Publisher 1880 – 1963

Biography

A cartoon from the 1919 July 26 issue of The Montgomery Emancipator.  It was edited by James McCall who we saw here as a young, blind poet.  He continued to write poetry and became a publisher of several newspapers, both in Montgomery and Detroit.  Below is part of an essay written by his daughter, Margaret McCall Thomas Ward.

Pioneer Journalists:  James Edward McCall and Margaret Walker McCall

by Margaret McCall Thomas Ward (their daughter)  

James Edward McCall’s destiny was to become a pioneer African American journalist and Newspaper publisher.  He began his life as a mixed race colored boy in the deep south, one generation away from slavery.  His parents, Edward McCall and Mary Allen McCall, were emancipated slaves.  They were the offspring of white masters.   Edward was a skilled carpenter and Mary was a talented dressmaker.

The couple placed great stress on education and they used their resources to educate their five children to college level.  James, the oldest of the five children, graduated from Alabama State Normal College in Montgomery, Alabama.  He left Alabama for Washington, D.C. to enroll in Howard University Medical School.  At that time, he was recognized in Montgomery literary circles as a gifted poet, however, he dreamed of following in the path of his paternal grandfather who was a physician.  Fate intervened.  At the end of his first year at Howard, he contracted typhoid fever which damaged his optic nerve.  Gradually, his vision diminished and for the rest of his life he was totally blind.

He returned home to Alabama, broken hearted.  After he accepted the shock of knowing that he would never see again, he decided to look for another career.  He enrolled in Albion College in Albion, Michigan, and he graduated in 1907.  This time, he returned to Alabama with the determination to help people by using his gift and skills as a writer.  Even though he was unable to see, he had the advantage of a trained mind and a superior education.   He embarked on a crusade against injustices African Americans endured, not only in the south but throughout the United States.

In 1910, his destiny as a compelling voice for racial equality began in Montgomery Alabama.  He published a magazine dedicated to relieving the problems of domestic servants in the south by organizing and training this important work force.  He named the magazine The Colored Servant Girl, and he wrote of the dignity of this occupation in an editorial entitled “What a Blind Man Sees in Passing.”  Also, he wrote articles about the activities of the Black community, and he published the articles in the white daily newspaper.  The articles were very widely read.  The success which he enjoyed with the publication of the magazine and articles motivated him to publish his own newspaper, the Emancipator.

Now begins the story of James McCall and Margaret Walker McCall, which is a romantic saga of ambition, faith, and love which lasted fifty years.  Margaret Walker, a lovely, ambitious graduate of Hampton Institute in Virginia and Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, fell in love with the blind newspaper man.  In 1914, they married and became a team in publishing the Emancipator.  Margaret worked in the capacity of Office Manager in their businesses.  She was the “eyes” of the union.  In 1929, when the Ku Klux Klan was most powerful in Montgomery, Alabama, the life of the outspoken editor was threatened.  The McCalls decided to migrate to Detroit, Michigan.  In a safer environment for themselves and their two daughters, they continued their newspaper careers.  For several years, James, with Margaret at his side, edited the Detroit Independent, a Negro weekly that flourished through the 1920s.

By 1935, McCall was editor and owner of the Detroit Tribune, which at that time was the only Negro weekly newspaper edited and published by and for Negroes in Michigan.  He called himself a “race man”.  Quite often, he used his poetic skill to write poems such as “The New Negro.” which was published in many anthologies.  He used the Detroit Tribune to crusade for better and more jobs for Negroes, better education for Negroes, promotion of Negroes in the Police and Fire Departments, and increased voter registration.  His paper was the first to wage a fight against police brutality in Detroit.  He campaigned for Black judges in the courts, for the right of labor to organize and for Negroes to join labor unions.

Due to advancing years, the McCalls sold the Detroit Tribune in 1946 and retired.  In 1963 James Edward McCall died.

This is a shortened version of that published, in full, in “Our Untold Stories A Collection of Family History Narratives” Compiled and written by members of the Fred Hart Williams Genealogical Society of Detroit, Michigan You learn more about the book, which includes 64 African American family history stories, here Fred Hart Williams Genealogy Society. It’s available on ebay also.

Idlewild Michigan – Mostly August 1948

Carnival of Genealogy, Cleages, ,

My Aunt Anna addressed her post card to everybody at the house.
Mrs. A.B. Cleage Sr. +Dr. L.J. Cleage + Mr. H.W. Cleage + Miss Barbara Cleage + Mrs. E. Warren Evans
6429 Scotten Ave.
Detroit 10 Michigan

Dear Folks!
Just arrived.  Haven’t made a complete investigation of the situation yet, but it promises to be a quiet, restful week.
’til then – P.W.
P.S. Hugh and I went swimming this morning – Henry who is this Vicki Draves? Gladys the cap is wonderful!  Really Barbara!

My grandfather addressed his card to his wife, Mrs. A.B. Cleage
8/2
Except food being cold and not sleeping well, having a fine time.  wish you were here.  Hugh and Anna o.k.
Albert

In 1948 the war was over and Hugh and Henry were back in Detroit after farming in Avoka as their Conscientious Objector service.  Hugh was working at the Post Office and Henry was  in law school at Wayne State.  Gladys was home visiting while waiting for her oldest son, Warren, to be born at the end of December.  No idea how or why my grandfather, Hugh and Anna had gone away alone to Louis’ cottage in Idlewild.  Anna, who signed her letter P.W. for her nick name of Pee Wee, was the youngest of Albert and Pearl’s 7 children.  She was 24 and at Wayne preparing to be a pharmacist.

Idlewild was organized by a group of white businessmen in 1912 as a resort for African Americans.  This was during the time of segregation and it didn’t matter if you were in the north or the south you weren’t going to be able to buy a cottage on a lake if you were black.  In it’s hey day, Idlewild had night clubs with acts by both the known and the unknown.  There was horseback riding at Sarges and skating at the skating rink in the club house. Various clubs from Detroit, Chicago and Kansas City got together to party and socialize.  The parties went on forever in the clubs and after hour places. This is what I heard from the old timers before I was an old timer.  My experience as a summer person in Idlewild consisted of swimming in front of my Uncle Louis cottage, socializing with my sister and cousins and jumping over the cracks in the roller rink floor (while skating).  In 1986 my husband, children and I moved to Idlewild.  It was a very different experience to be a local.  Lake county, where Idlewild is located is one of the poorest counties in Michigan.  But this isn’t that story.

My family started coming up to Idlewild in the early 1920s. In the photo above my father is the tall one with the cap on the far left, cousin Helen Mullins next, then my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage, two people I don’t know, my grandfather with his arms crossed on the right. Front row far right my aunt Barbara, the shorty in front of grandfather is Gladys, the kid with the bubble gum in his cheek or the chaw of tobacco or a toothache is my uncle Henry. I don’t know any of the rest.  Where are Hugh and Anna (aka Pee Wee)? Napping? Waiting until 1948 to show up and steal the show?

I miss Idlewild.  We went up during the summers when I was growing up and lived there for 20 years, longer than I lived any place else in my whole life. When I think about home, I think of Idlewild.  In the photo below my son Cabral is coming out of the lake after swimming across and back.  It was about 2003.

This blog post was written for The 4th Annual Swimsuit Edition The Carnival of Genealogy, organized by Jasia at CreativeGene.

A boy and his dog – Hugh Cleage

Cleages, sepia saturday

Hugh Cleage and dog

Obituary
September 28, 2005
BY CHRIS KUCHARSKI
FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER

Hugh C. Cleage

Printer, political activist

Former Detroit political activist Hugh C. Cleage, 87, died Thursday after a long battle with bladder cancer at his home in Anderson, S.C., where he had spent the last few years supervising the ranch and riding stables of his nephew, Dr. Ernest Martin.

One of the organizers of the Black Slate and a candidate for Michigan state representative in the 1964, he was a member of one of Detroit’s most politically influential families, which included his brother, the late Rev. Albert Cleage Jr., founder of the Shrine of the Black Madonna.

He was born in Detroit, graduated from Northwestern High School in 1936 and later earned his bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Michigan State University. As conscientious objectors to World War II, he and his brother Henry chose farming as an alternative to military service.

In the early 1960s, he became co-owner of the Illustrated News, which he ran with his brothers and other citizens. The paper was distributed free to black churches.

The Black Slate, which evolved from that publication, sought to educate Detroit’s black voters and urged them to support black candidates.

As a member of the Freedom Now Party, Mr. Cleage ran an unsuccessful campaign for state representative in the 23rd District. It was said to be the first all-black political party.

Mr. Cleage retired to Anderson in the early 1990s.

He is survived by sisters Barbara Martin, Gladys Evans and Anna Shreve, and many nieces and nephews.

A private memorial will be held Friday in South Carolina, followed by a public service at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Shrine of the Black Madonna, 7625 Linwood, Detroit. Memorial contributions may be made to the Salvation Army, 16130 Northland Drive, Southfield 48075.

For more posts about Hugh click Skating Champions,  Elections Past,   Hugh with Friends,

For more sepia saturday offerings click here.