Here is a photograph of my cousin Dee Dee and her mother Mary V. Graham Elkins taken on Belle Isle in 1947. At first I thought the fuzzy black spot on the lower right was an ink spot, but when I looked closer I saw it was a little dog. Dee Dee is looking down at it a bit apprehensively.
There are several family photographs taken around the statue of James Scott, who donated the money for the Scott fountain and I grew up going to Belle Isle and seeing the fountain in all it’s glory but I never knew anything about James Scott until I was working on this post and found a piece on Historic Detroit that begins “The Scott Memorial Fountain is the jewel of Belle Isle – and a monument to a womanizing scoundrel.” and gets worse from there. Click the link for the full article.
Mikerussell at en.wikipedia
A picture of the fountain with the James Scott statue. You can see a short video of the workings of the fountain underneath here “Underneath Belle Isle…”
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.
Here are 6 young women at a Boulé event back in the 1940s in or outside of Detroit. Two of my aunts are in the picture. Barbara Cleage is front and center with a light dress and jacket. At the end of the line is my aunt Anna Cleage who seems to be wearing trousers. Unfortunately the photo was unlabeled and I do not know the names of the others. I recognized the woman on the far right as one in the background photograph of the photograph of my grandfather, Albert B. Cleage Sr with a camera. Sheryl asked last week what sort of even my grandfather was attending. It made me go back and look at the background in the photo below and then look for photographs that appear to have been taken on the same day. You can read an post from 2012 about the Boulé at this link.
My grandfather Albert B. Cleage with his camera. In the background we see the young woman with her hand on her hip and the dark dress, from the first photo above. The woman closer to us in the striped outfit, carrying a big purse, appears in the bleachers (which we see in the background here) in the photo below.
The 4th woman from the right, first row, is in the photo with my grandfather to his left. Above her head, on the top row are some of the young women from the first photo above.
First a photo of the men, then one of the women. Or vice versa. Who is that on the second row taking a photograph of the photographer? Front row center is Cornelius Henderson, engineer who graduated from the University of Michigan and helped design the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor.
Cornelius L. Henderson
My grandmother, Pearl Reed Cleage facing front, second woman to the right in the second row
My grandmother second bench, 2nd from right. My aunt Anna (from the photo of the lovelies) can be seen behind the lady first in my grandmother’s row. My aunt Barbara is 1 person over from Anna. You can see the woman in the striped dress in the first photograph lineup. Toward the left side, top row, you can see another young woman from the first photo.I do not see any family members but do notice the men and women are sitting together in this one. I wonder how the man in front lost his leg.
Reading about the present teacher’s sick out and the student walkouts in Detroit reminded me of this boycott of Northwestern High School in 1962. I was a junior and remember picketing in the cold. Several students from our church Youth Fellowship came and picketed with us even though they were students at Cass. Most of my classmates went to school that day, I particularly remember one of my friends said she was not going to stay home because she didn’t want to miss a day at school. Sometime later students from Northwestern were bused out to the white schools with vacant seats.
Click any of the images to enlarge for reading.
My sister Pearl in the checked pants carrying the sign. My father on the far right side walking towards Pearl.
I am pretty sure “A Northwestern Teacher” was Ernest Smith, an activist and member of my father’s church.
I am in the front bottom right photo, turning backwards with the high water pants.
The Cleage Family at Idlewild about 1928. Left to right: My grandmother Pearl, Gladys, Hugh, Anna and Barbara. Back row: Louis, Henry (with cap) Albert Jr(my father) and my grandfather Albert Sr.
I remember that my grandmother did not think much of Idlewild vacations when her children were growing up and they rented places because she still had to do all the cooking, washing and other chores she did at home, but without the familiar home tools. Everybody else loved it and they probably went out on the water in a row boat and went swimming and fishing and visiting friends. Maybe the older ones went to dances.
While looking through old copies of The Illustrated News for something completely unrelated, I came across this advertisment for Vicki’s Bar-B-Que. I noticed the oven and immediately thought of the Sepia Saturday prompt for this week. I decided to google Vicki’s and see if there were any photographs or other ads from the past. Imagine my surprise when I found that the restaurant is still operating and that the same family still owns it!
Although I do not remember ever eating at Vicki’s or tasting their sauce, I was able to find a family member who has been to the restaurant recently and she said, “Yes. Vicki’s is still there. Some people love it! I’m not a fan but I’ve only been there once. Maybe it was a bad day. They have the kind of bbq that is grilled meat and then you dip it on the sauce instead of grilling and caramelizing the sauce while grilling.”
You can see an interview with the present owner, the oldest son of the original family, and photos of the food and building, plus reviews of the present food and service at this link Vicki’s Yelp Page. The link to the video is just under the photos of the restaurant at the top of the page.
It was the summer of 1953. My sister and I stood on my uncle Louis Cleage’s dock in front of his cottage in Idlewild, Michigan holding our dolls. The summer of 1953 my mother, sister and I stayed with her parents on the East side while my father stayed with his parents on Atkinson. We were between houses as a Church fight had resulted in us having to vacate the parsonage. We moved to the new parsonage at 2254 Chicago at the end of the summer.
I remember riding on the floor of my grandparent’s car on the way there, my grandmother reading to us by kerosene lamp during a storm that put the electricity out, fishing off of the dock, the catfish that lived underneath it and being out of the city for an extended time for the first time in my life.
Taken at Old Plank about 1963. Me with my cousins, Blair, Jan and Dale. They seem to be trying to pose for the photographer while I am about to cause trouble with that ball. I was a senior at Northwestern High School in Detroit. Old Plank was 30 minutes outside of Detroit near Wixom. We had 2 acres with a big house and although there was talk of moving there, we didn’t. We went for weekends to get out of the city until 1967, after the riot when the printing business lost the businesses that burned or left. At the same time, a man bought the barn and let his chickens and hogs run lose. Before he and Henry came to blows, they sold him the house.
There were two more photographs taken that same day. I think they were taken in the order shown below. My uncle Henry took the photos and developed them at the print shop that he and Hugh ran at the time – Cleage Printers.
This store was located some blocks from our house on Oregon on Tireman Ave. Sometimes my mother called and ordered the food and the delivery guy brought it to the house. This day we went there in person and there is my mother in the glasses and me in a scarf with the grocery bag coming behind her. Henry must have been there to take the photograph. There is that strange grassy stuff at the top of the picture. It seems to be on a bunch of photos, maybe they were all taken on the same roll.
My most memorial story concerning this store is the time my mother, my sister and I were on the way to the store. My sister and I were going in while my mother waited in the car and she was telling us what to get. One item was ground round and she was explaining the difference between hamburger (don’t get it!) and ground round (do get it!) when I heard my voice saying, “ok, ok. We’ll get ground round.” There was silence for a moment and then she said get out, get the groceries and walk home. That was about 5 blocks, with heavy paper bags of groceries. We made it. Probably she had little to say to us when we finally did get home with the ground round and the rest of the groceries.
I was going to put a photo of the store as it is now but that area on goggle maps was vacant lots covered in cracked asphalt or brush. I can’t even tell where it was. You can read more about the house we lived in during this time and my life there in O is for Oregon.
