Northwestern High School & Cleage Graduates

Cleages, Detroit, , , , , ,
old northwestern
The original Northwestern High School stood on the corner of Grand River and West Grand Blvd in Detroit.  It was built in 1911.

When I finished writing up this post, I googled Northwestern High School and found the following statement in an online article from 2011 about school closures in Detroit:

“The academic program at Northwestern High School will close and the Detroit Collegiate Preparatory High School program will relocate from the east wing of Northwestern into the main academic part of the facility. Because of the importance of the Northwestern name to DPS and the community, this new program will be called Detroit Collegiate Preparatory High School at Northwestern.”

So,  like so many other places of importance in my early life in Detroit, Northwestern High is no more.  The original building was replaced in 1980 and the school was closed in 2011. So many of my family attended high school at Northwestern, some just for a year or two.  Here is something about those who graduated, starting with Alberta Cleage in 1927 and ending with my sister Pearl in 1966.

Click on any image to enlarge.

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Alberta blog HS

Cousin Alberta Cleage, my grandfather’s brother Edward’s daughter, came up from Athens Tennessee to stay with her Uncle Albert and his family and graduated from Northwestern High School in 1927.

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albert sax HS

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My uncle Louis Cleage graduated Cum Laude in 1931 and appeared in a picture of the physics lab, right there lower right, first desk.  Advertisements for his medical practice appeared in the Norwester in 1941 and 1942.

Louis Cleage HS
louis ads hs

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Henry Cleage appears in a photograph of the orchestra in 1933 and as a graduating senior in 1934.  He is in the back row, 4th from the left with his cello.

henry Cleage_band blog

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My uncle Hugh Cleage graduated in 1936, unfortunately that yearbook is missing.

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Hugh Cleage

My aunt Barbara Cleage graduated in summer school in August of 1938

barbara hs
Barbara Cleage

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My aunt Gladys Cleage graduated in 1939.  In the photo on the right Gladys is standing in front of the back steps. You can see Henry over her right shoulder. Not sure who the other two are but my grandmother Pearl is looking through the screen door.

gladys Cleage HS plus

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My cousin Geraldine Cleage, Uncle Henry Cleage’s daughter graduated in 1940.  They lived a few blocks from my grandparent’s house on Scotten.

geri cleage HS

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Anna Cleage graduated from Northwestern in 1942 and appeared in the Norwester and in 1947 in the yearbook when she graduated from Wayne State University.

anna HS 1942
Anna 1947 WSU
Anna’s Wayne State University graduation photograph from 1947.

I, Kristin Cleage, graduated from Northwestern in 1964.

honor society 1a

That is me in the middle, 2nd row. I pretty much looked like that throughout my high school career.  I did not take a senior photo and didn’t plan to go to my graduation, but did end up going. Do not remember a thing about it.

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Pearl Michelle Cleage 1966 graduate

My sister Pearl Cleage graduated from Northwestern in 1966. 

pearlscholarship1966

Pearl gave the valedictorian speech at her graduation. Jim advised her to speak out against the war in Vietnam. She was horrified at the thought and regrets now that she did not do it.

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Several family members attended Northwestern for part of their four year high school career and then transferred to other schools. Some were Ruth Cleage, Shelton Hill, Ernest Martin and Betty Floyd.

new northwestern
The new Northwestern High School, dedicated in 1980, stood down the street from the old site on West Grand Blvd.

Balloons – 1926

Grahams, ,
Mershell, Mary V. and Doris Graham on their front steps. 1926.

Mershell, Mary V. and Doris Graham, my mother sitting on their front steps waving balloons on sticks. It was 1926.  The house was on Theodore, the east side of Detroit. Sometimes I dream about this house and the porch usually figures in the dreams as I leave or enter or start down the street going somewhere.

Other posts about the house on Theodore are – Everyday Things Then and Now and T is for Theodore Street

Sepia Saturday Header
Sepia Saturday Header

Poster From Photograph

Cleages, Photographs,

Poster using my photograph.
My sister Pearl, My father Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr and me, Kristin

Several weeks ago I was contacted  for permission to use my photograph on a poster for a presentation at the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice University College Dublin.  Here is a copy of the poster. The photograph first appeared in the post – Then and Now – Atkinson About 1953.

You can read more about the presentation here:  Intergenerational transfers and housing tenure: Australian evidence

Just Pals-Shell & Clifton Jr

Grahams, Photographs
mershell & pal
Mershell C Graham and friends son, Clifton Graham Jr. About 1921.
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Clifton Jr, Mary Virginia, Lewis and Mershell Jr. Clifton and Lewis are siblings and Mary Virginia and Mershell are siblings.
Belle isle grahams 1921
Gwen, Fan with Mary Virginia, Matt with Lewis, Cliff with Clifton. At Bell Isle 1920

Perhaps an answer to the mystery photograph from Sepia Saturday #303, also pictured below.  Cliff was my grandfather M.C. Graham’s play brother and their families first roomed together and after the first children were born, they both occupied a two family flat, 1 family per flat.  Their children were born close together. Looking at the little pal in the first photograph with my grandfather Mershell, I think he could be the child in the other photograph.  He is several years older in the line in the second photo.  His ears in all three pictures bend a bit at the top. Perhaps the woman was his mother, Gwen pictured in the last photo.  Or maybe I need to keep looking for her.

"Me and my pal." From the Graham family photo album.
“Me and my pal.” From the Graham family photo album.

Me And My Pal

Grahams, sepia saturday

"Me and my pal." From the Graham family photo album.
“Me and my pal.” From the Graham family photo album.

I’m not sure who either of these are but I wish I did. They are friends of my grandparents, Mershell and Fannie Graham, that I know.

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For more Sepia Saturday posts, CLICK!

The Day Louis Cleage Died – 7 Feb 1918

Cleages,

In 2011 a genealogy friend of mine, Megan Heyl of Hunting Down History, was helping me find the death date and place for my great grandfather, Louis Cleage.  She wrote to the Indianapolis Public Library and asked librarian Mike Perkins if he could tell us anything.  At the time, he could not. However, on October 6, 2015, he sent a copy of Louis Cleage’s death notice from the Indianapolis Star.  That is 4 years later!

louis cleage death 1918

I wondered what was happening on the day he died.  Using  Newspapers.com, I was able to locate the full issue of The Indianapolis Star for February 7, 1918 and find out.  The first thing I noticed when looking at the full list of deaths for that day, was that 6 of the 11 people that died, died of  pneumonia.  Below is a collage made from articles and advertisements in that day’s issue of The Indianapolis Star.

feb 7 1918 news

Other posts about Louis Cleage.

Louis Cleage & Family 1880
Louis Cleage – Work Day
Louis Cleage (pronounced Kleg)
Louis Cleage (pronounced Kleg)
Louis Cleage burial Spot
Louis Cleage’s Death Certificate

Seven Missing Posts For Sepia Saturday – Part 2

sepia saturday,

This is the second batch of photographs fulfilling missed prompts for Sepia Saturday 47 – 200. With this I have answered every prompt since I began with #47.

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The Camel Cigarette campaign started in 1913 with a mystery ad “The Camels are coming!” without saying what the camels were. Finally they were unveiled as cigarettes. Read about the history of cigarette addiction here – The Nicotine Fix.

louis on patio
My uncle Louis Cleage was born in 1913, the same year as Camel cigarettes. He chain smoked for most of his life, often lighting one cigarette from the one he held. I remember him talking and laughing, holding a cigarette with a long ash about to fall or falling. Here he is smoking at his cottage in Idlewild. He died at 80 of emphysema.

96 tabjilo_campfire_idlewildJilo roasting a marshmellow during one of the rare Cleage Reunions in the Deer Park next to Louis’ cottage in Idlewild, Michigan.

97tabbouleMy father and his siblings with other children at The Meadows. About 1930.  In the first row, L > R Henry, Barbara, Gladys and Anna Cleage. In the second row also L >R, Albert Jr, Louis and Hugh Cleage. Unfortunately, I do not know the other children’s names.

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James catches train. There were several model trains in the family, but unfortunately I have no photos of them. Here son James catching a train from Oceanside, CA back to New Orleans after a visit with his sister and her family.

128 Fannie Graham 1934My grandmother Fannie Mae Turner Graham all dressed up for church by her back steps. I wonder what that box in the kitchen window was.  I found that there were “window refrigerators” in use during the depression.  You can see one here “LawCo vintage Window Refrigerator“.  Or even better, here “Window Icebox, A Money Saver.” Herb Mandel describes using one as a boy.

150shucksUnknown woman in Henry Cleage’s box of photographs.

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hugh Uncle Hugh Cleage standing in a doorway.