My uncle Louis Cleage, second from left. Velma Payne second from right.
I don’t know who the bride and groom are. I only recognize my uncle Louis Cleage and the woman second from the right, Velma Payne. I miss being able to send these mystery photos to my aunts for identification. I wrote about Louis as one of the 7 in a boat.
Velma was born on August 4, 1919 and passed away in 2010 at the age of 90. She was the wife of George W. Payne. They had two children. She was a librarian in the Detroit Public Library system for 32 years. She was a librarian at the Oakman branch library when I used to go there as a child. I remember one evening going there after school with my mother and sister and finding the book “Bed knob and Broomstick: or How to be a Witch in 10 Easy Lessons.” It turned out to be one of my favorite books.
Not so wordless Wednesday Talks about Velma Payne and has a wedding portrait of George and Velma Payne.
Front, Evelyn Douglas, Cornelius L. Henderson, Albert B. Cleage Jr. Seated in the back are Henry Cleage, Louis Cleage and Helen Mullins holding one year old Hugh Cleage.
After posting yesterday about the children in this boat, I looked at different view of the same boat, same children plus dog. I think that the baby is Hugh, not Barbara Cleage. That means it was taken about 1919.
Hugh Cleage, the baby, was the 4th son of Dr. Albert and Pearl Cleage. He was born in June 1918. Hugh took a course at Michigan State University in agriculture. During WW2 he and his brother Henry farmed as a conscientious objectors. After the war, Hugh worked at the post office. In the late 1950s, Hugh and Henry started Cleage Printers where they printed far into the night putting out flyers for grocery stores, books of poetry and radical newsletters. Hugh ran on the Freedom Now ticket in 1964. After the 1967 Detroit riot, many of the stores that they had printed flyers for went out of business. Henry went back to law. Hugh continued to run the printing plant for several years, but eventually closed it down. He spent many years being care taker for his mother after she broke her hip and became more and more frail. Later he helped his nephew Ernest, on his farm in South Carolina. Hugh died in South Carolina in 2005.
Far left back, shadowy Henry Cleage, Louis Cleage, cousin Helen Mullins holding baby Hugh Cleage. In front Evelyn Douglas, Cornelius Henderson, “Toddy” (Albert B. Cleage jr) in the boat. About 1919.
Looking at this photograph, I wondered about the lives of the children in the boat. Here are their lives in a paragraph.
Evelyn Douglas, seated on the left in the first row, was born in 1910 in Detroit. She was the only child of Dr. Edward and Louise Douglas. Her father was a dentist. Her mother was a dressmaker before Evelyn was born. Evelyn graduated from the University of Michigan and earned a graduate degree in education. She married Charles E. Beatty, Sr., a pioneering educator, in 1935. He was the first black principal of Perry Elementary School in Ypsilanti, MI which later housed HighScope Perry Preschool program. She taught for 30 years in the Detroit Public Schools. Evelyn was the mother of three children. She died at age 93 in 2003 in Detroit.
Cornelius Langston Henderson, who sits in the middle of the first row, was born in 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. He was an only child and grew up several blocks from the Cleages on Detroit’s Old West Side. Cornelius was named after his father, Cornelius L Henderson Sr., also born in Detroit. Like his father, Cornelius Jr became an engineer. His mother, Gertrude, born in Virginia and taught in the Washington DC public schools before she married. The younger Cornelius graduated from Howard University in Washington DC with a degree in civil engineering. He later took postgraduate classes at the University of Michigan. He worked for the City of Detroit as a civil engineer for over 30 years, where he helped design sewer systems. He was married and raised two sons and a stepdaughter. He died in November of 1993 in Detroit and is buried in Detroit Memorial Park.
Albert B Cleage, Jr, my father, seated on the right end of the first row, was the oldest of the seven children of Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr and Pearl Reed Cleage. He grew up to be a black nationalist minister and organizer around political and civil rights issues. He founded Central Congregational Church which became Central United Church of Christ and finally the Shrine of the Black Madonna. He had two daughter, my sister and me. He died in 2000.
Directly behind my father is his first cousin Helen Mullins. Born in 1899 in Indianapolis, Indiana, she was the oldest of the 12 children of James and Minnie (who was my grandmother Pearl Cleage’s sister) Mullins. James Mullins held various jobs through the years, including that of fireman, carpenter and laborer. Helen completed highschool. She married Otto Mitchell. They raised four children. In the 1940 census Helen was a telegraph operator for Western Union while Otto worked on the assemble line of an automobile factory in Detroit. They owned their own home. Helen died in 1982.
Helen is holding Barbara Cleage, my aunt. Barbara was the 5th child and first daughter of Dr. Albert and Pearl Cleage. She completed a year at Wayne State. She married Ernest Martin and had one son. Unfortunately the marriage didn’t work out and she returned to Detroit. Barbara worked as a receptionist in her father’s doctor’s office, at Cleage Printers doing layout and finally her true talent came to the fore and she organized and managed the bookstores and cultural centers for the Shrine of the Black Madonna. She was amazing at it. Barbara is 96 and lives in South Carolina.
Next, in the back row middle, we have my uncle Louis Cleage. Born in 1913 he was the 2nd of the seven children. He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a medical doctor, sharing an office with him for some years. Besides having a medical practice on Lovett Ave. in Detroit for many years, he was active in the Movement. He wrote Smoke Rings for the Illustrated News and ran for office on the Freedom Now Party ticket in 1964. He maintained a cottage in Idlewild where the family spent many happy summers. Louis died in 1994.
Last we have a partial, ghostly image of my uncle Henry Cleage. He was the third child born in 1915. He graduated from Wayne State in Detroit and became a lawyer. During WW2 he and his brother Hugh farmed as a conscientious objectors. (Where was Hugh when this picture was taken? Click to read) Henry later left the law and started Cleage Printers where he and Hugh printed far into the night putting out flyers for grocery stores, books of poetry and radical newsletters. He ran for Prosecuting Attorney on the Freedom Now ticket in 1964. After the 1967 Detroit riot, Henry returned to the law and worked for Neighborhood Legal Services until he retired to Idlewild, MI where he fine tuned his Status Theory. He died in 1996.
The photograph in the boat was taken the day of this picnic, summer of 1919.
I used news articles, census and other records from ancestry.com to fill in the lives of Evelyn Douglas and Cornelius L. Henderson, who are not related to me.
James was taking the photo, unfortunately because Williams photos are rare. The two youngest girls were not yet born. Taken about 1959. Williams family photograph.
My husband James was a baby, the youngest of the five children of Chester and Theola Williams, when they moved from Dermott, AK to St. Louis, MO about 1945. At first they stayed with Theola’s sister who lived on Keokuk Street. James older brother Harold, born in January 1942, was kindergarten age, the family moved to a house they bought on Washington Blvd and Whittier Street.
Route from the house to the school. From Google maps.
Cole Elementary School from Google maps. Click to enlarge.
Harold remembers that he started kindergarten about 1947 at Cole Elementary School, which was around the corner from the house. He did not finish the year out because their house was fire bombed. They had moved into a white neighborhood where they were not wanted. The oldest sister, Jocelyn Maxine remembered that their mother was very calm as she moved the children from the front of the house, where the bomb entered, to a back room.
Because of the bombing, the city of St. Louis gave the family an apartment in Carr Square Village, a public housing project. When the family included nine children, they had outgrown that apartment and moved to Pruitt–Igoe, a large housing project first occupied in 1954. Eventually there were 12 children and the family bought a house on Cabanne Street. They lived there until about 1970 when they moved to Inglewood Court, where they lived until that property was taken by the city to build a strip mall about 2005.
My husband has been trying to find validation for this oral history, mainly searching old newspapers. So far he has not had any luck, but I think that he may have been searching the wrong years, so we are hopeful that eventually the story will be validated.
My grandfather, Mershell C. Graham. “On the way home from work 1943”
From my grandmother Fannie’s scrapbook. “That’s my Shell” 1-25-59.
River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
My grandfather, Mershell C. Graham came to Detroit from Montgomery, Alabama in 1917. He worked on the steamer “Eastern States” as a steward for awhile and then as a stockman in the library at the Ford River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan until he retired in the 1950s. Although he had a car, he did not drive to work, he caught the bus, first walking to the bus stop and then riding over an hour to get to work.
Turner Plantation house – Picking cotton – Slave dwelling – Lowndes County Courthouse, Hayneville AL
There are four lists from different dates for doctors visits to the enslaved on the Turner plantation. Sometimes those treated are named and sometimes they are just referred to as “negroe”. I have added the ages of those who are named based on other lists from the estate files.
Dr. C.B. Lampley was the doctor listed for this time period. Lampley was born in 1830 in Richmond County, NC. His family relocated to Alabama by 1850. He married Thurza Rudolph of Lowndes County. They had two children. In the 1860 census he enslaved four people, a 35 year old mulatto woman, a 30 year old black man, a fifteen year old mulatto girl and a 14 year old black male. They lived in two dwellings. He joined the Confederate Army where he became a surgeon. He was lamed and later resigned due to diabetes and general debility. During 1854 and 1855 he visited the Turner plantation to treat the enslaved – pulling teeth, lancing abscesses, bleeding and dosing with medication.
The rebuilt plantation house of Wiley Turner. You can see more photos and information here. No photos of the slave quarters survive. In 1860 there were 15 slave dwellings for 75 enslaved people. Five members of the Wiley Turner family lived in the big house.
Recently I decided to find the plantation where my 2X great grandparents, Joe and Emma Turner were enslaved. I started by looking at white Turners in Hayneville, Lowndes County, Alabama where my family lived in 1870. I found Wiley Turner and his brother Thomas Turner. Both died in 1851. Wiley’s estate file contained several lists of those enslaved on his plantation. I found a Joe. I believe this is my Joe because there was only one Joe Turner in the area, because he is the right age and because he was described as “white”, and my great great grandfather Joe Turner was very light skinned.
Of the four lists, this first one is the most complete in that it includes names, ages and monetary worth. I will be writing more about the Turner plantation and those who were once enslaved on it, as I continue to try and piece together the lives of Joe and Emma Turner and others in their community.
Inventory; and Appraisement of the Est. of Wiley Turner, Deceased. February 1852. Those in maroon were set aside for his widow, Francis Turner. They do not appear in future inventories.
Click to enlarge.
Sex Name Aged Worth
1. Boy Andrew 20 $850.00
2. Girl Fanny 20 750.00
3. Boy Lewis (Tyus) 24 750.00
4. Girl Amy 29 550.00
5. Boy Mordicai 20 875.00
6. Girl Leah 20 650.00
7. Boy Billy (Tyus) 22 850.00
8. Girl Martha 20 700.00
9. Boy Toney 25 600.00
10. Woman Ellen & child 40 400.00
11. Girl Abby 14 550.00
12. Girl Little Margaret 13 500.00
13. Boy Alfred 22 700.00
14. Woman Maria & child Ranson 30 500.00
15. Girl Little Jane 9 250.00
16. Girl Louisa 4 250.00
17. Girl Adella 2 175.00
18. Man Doctor 55 240.00
19. Woman Mary 50 175.00
20. Girl Eliza 14 600.00
21. Girl Minerva 12 450.00
22. Girl Amanda 10 350.00
23. Man Lewis 18 750.00
24. Woman Lucy 30 400.00
25. Man Adam 22 500.00
26. Girl Mary Ellen & boy Edward 18 800.00
27. Man Jack 30 350.00
28. Woman Big Margaret 25 650.00
29. Boy Jesse (Tyus) 20 900.00
30. Woman Elizabeth 23 650.00
31. Man William 50 400.00
32. Woman Rachell 50 200.00
33. Boy Little Charle 8 450.00
Click to enlarge
34. Girl Susan 18 700.00
35. Girl Eliza 34 400.00
36. Girl Harriett 5 225.00
37. Man Sam 35 400.00
38. Woman Lyddy 30 400.00
39. Boy Henry (May) 19 900.00
40. Woman Ellen Brown 25 500.00
41. Man Robbin 25 800.00
42. Woman Cherry & child Louisa 36 400.00
43. Boy Prince 5 350.00
44. Woman Rachell (Patten) 28 700.00
45. Boy Robert 11 500.00
46. Boy Frank 6 300.00
47. Woman Maria Ann 16 700.00
48. Man Charles (Rugely) 23 850.00
49. Woman Rose & child Gabril 28 650.00
50. Boy Washington 14 700.00
51. Man John 24 800.00
52. Woman Nelly 49 200.00
53. Boy Abram 16 900.00
54. Man Big Jesse 26 450.00
55. Girl Jane 18 700.00
56. Girl Hager 23 500.00
57. Girl Abegail & child Ema 23 400.00
58. Woman Old Rachell 60 100.00
59. Man Frederick 23 850.00
60. Woman Clara & child Alford 35 500.00
61. Girl Sylvia 12 500.00
62. Girl Lucy 12 450.00
63. Girl Alice 8 350.00
64. Boy Freeman 6 350.00
65. Boy Harrison 6 350.00
66. Girl Julia Ann 3 200.00
67. Boy Henry (Turner) 18 875.00
Click to enlarge.
68. Man Old Jim 45 400.00
69. Woman Menty 45 300.00
70. Boy Daniel 3 200.00
71. Man Ben 33 800.00
72. Woman Mary McQuee 28 500.00
73. Boy Harry 12 550.00
74. Woman Hannah 55 200.00
75. Boy George 13 600.00
76. Woman Betsey & child Caroline 23 800.00
77. Girl Phillis 8 375.00
78. Girl Peggy 3 225.00
79. Man Achilles 43 650.00
80. Woman Mariah Mosely 35 450.00
81. Girl Elvira 14 650.00
82. Boy Jim Swagert 18 800.00
83. Man Wilson 28 850.00
84. Woman Yellow Jinny 45 400.00
85. Man Martin 26 1,100.00
86. Woman Letty 21 300.00
87. Man Hardy 56 250.00
88. Boy Nelson 15 750.00
89. Boy Lloyd 17 700.00
91. Boy Austin 16 800.00
92. Boy Long George 19 350.00
93. Boy Isaac 10 350.00
94. Boy Joe (white) 15 650.00
95. Boy Jim Patton 14 700.00
96. Woman Milly 55 150.00
97. Man Edmond 38 600.00
98. Man Tom 40 600.00
99. Boy Ned 11 475.00
100. Girl Emeline 9 350.00
101. Man Yellow John 24 875.00
Click to enlarge
102. Woman Yellow Milly 30 800.00
103. Boy Anthony infant(included with Milly)
104. Boy Little William 10 450.00
105. Boy Carter 6 350.00
106. Boy Braxton 4 250.00
107. Woman Alcey 40 200.00
108. Old Man Turner 65 1.00
109. Boy Frank (blind) 18 1.00
Joe and Emma Turner were the parents of Howard Turner who was my grandmother Fannie Mae Turner Graham’s father. You can see other posts about my Turner’s below.
While checking my facebook memories this morning, I discovered that yesterday was my 6th anniversary of my blog Finding Eliza. I’ve published 890 posts during those six years. I’ve been found by long lost cousins, found wills that took my family back another generation and confirmed the plantations where they were enslaved. I’ve followed myself through the streets of my life, followed my Graham grandparents from Montgomery to Detroit, investigated the Cleages of Athens, TN and more. I’ve learned so much during that time and can only hope I learn as much in the next six years.
I wrote this poem for the 2013 August Postcard Poetry Challenge and just was reminded of it while reading Crazy as a Cool Fox’s Sepia Saturday post about typewriters.
“I think getting a card that had been through a typewriter would be pretty cool.” Paul Nelson
“Aug 16, 1868 I have the honor to state that I have just assumed charge of the Bureau at this point and find that the spirit of abuse and austersism is uncontrollable. There were at one time 4 flourishing schools for the freed people in this county but the teachers were so much abused and threatened that they were compelled to close. Union men are openly assailed in the streets and there is no protection for person or property…”
“… (ex)cept by shooting some of them (do)wn. A squad of them usually (are) together and if one is hurt (the) balance interferes in his behalf. I have the honor to ask that (a) squad of U.S. troop be (se)nt here. Their presence is one (tha)t is necessary to keep these (mi)sserable out-laws down. I think it is a duty this (gov(ernment owes her ex soldiers to (pr)otect them. waiting a favorable answer. (I) am ______ very truly your ob(edien)t Servant, W.H.Hunter A.S.A.C. fr(om Lowndes Co Ala
My 2X great grandfather, Joe Turner was enumerated in the 1866 Alabama State census with his family of five living in Lowndes County, Alabama. In the 1870 census they were enumerated In Hayneville, Lowndes County. Joe was a farmer with $300 worth of personal goods. Neither he nor his wife Emma could read or write. The children were Lydia 8, Howard 7 (my great grandfather), Fannie 6, Joe 3 and Annie born in August of that year.
