The Santa that my mother put under the tree in 1968, my last Christmas at home.
Merrie Christmas and Happy New Year
A Christmas card from my Grandparent’s ( Mershell and Fannie Graham) collection, date unknown. I read on a post by Pauline on Family History Across the Seas about the people who sent Christmas Cards. It started me thinking about the cards I had from my grandparents collection with photographs of people I only knew were friends of the family, but nothing else about them. I wondered what I could find out. I picked this one out because, unlike some of the others, it had a name and a street address, although there was no date and no city. My grandparents lived in Montgomery, AL before moving to Detroit in 1919, so I started there. Here is what I learned from the census and Montgomery Directory about Addie Smith.
Addie was born in 1869 in South Carolina to parents also born in South Carolina. In 1888, (the year my grandmother was born), Addie married Fountain Smith, a laborer about 14 years her senior. This was her first marriage. Fountain may have been married before. They had no children.
By 1906 Fountain and Addie were living at 105 Hutchinson Street in Montgomery. She would live in this rented house for the rest of her life. A Fountain Smith filed for bankruptcy in 1906. Over the years Addie Smith worked as a char woman/janitress in the Post Office. She may have also worked in that capacity in other public buildings.
At 53 years old, on October 26 in 1922, Addie Smith died. She is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery. Fountain lived another 8 years, dying on November 3, 1930. He would have been about 62. Because Addie died in 1922 and my grandparents moved to Detroit in 1919, I am guessing that this card was sent in 1920.
Looking at a map of the 4th Ward in Montgomery in I found that Hutchinson street no longer had houses below #800, However, my great Uncle Victor Tulane had a grocery store at Ripley and High street. My grandmother Fannie managed the store for a number of years before her marriage. This store would have been several blocks from Addie and Fountain Smith’s house. I am supposing that this is how they met.
Memories of Snow
- I remember looking out of the door to see the snow even with the porch. I was about two years old.
Winter 1949 me with my sister Pearl. Springfield, MA. We played out in the snow and pulled each other on that sled when we were older.I remember March blizzards when my sister and I would be about the only students at Roosevelt Elementary school. Most people stayed home, although the schools never closed. We lived on Calvert, two blocks from the school and our mother was a teacher there, we all walked there together.
The New York Snow Storm 1969: Right now there’s a blizzard going on outside. I was out earlier to wash and I got soaked. You can’t hardly see a block and it’s already at least 5 inches (maybe 3) and giving no sign of stopping.
Thanksgiving of 1975 my husband, my two daughters and myself traveled by bus from Charleston, SC to Detroit to visit family. There was a heavy snowfall the night before we were supposed to leave and the buses stopped running. After waiting at the bus station, we called a friend who took us back to my parents house where we stayed until the buses started running the next day or the day after. We slept downstairs in my grandparents flat, which was empty as they had died the year before. That is the same flat that my grandmother is looking out of the window above. Those couple of days might have been the most pleasant of the trip.
Excelsior Springs: In the winter the roads were snowy and icy. I had learned to drive in the South and was not use to winter driving. When the first heavy snow fell, I went out in the yard with the kids and played in it. We couldn’t understand why none of the neighbors were out there. After several more years, snow didn’t seem so glorious. Still nice though.
Thanksgiving 1991: My memories of this Thanksgiving begin with the snow storm that dumped at least a foot of snow on us. It started the day before and continued into Thanksgiving day. I remember waiting for people to arrive, standing out in the yard looking through the woods at the road and seeing cars coming through the snow.
For several years my 4th daughter Tulani taught her dogs to pull a dog sled. I took one ride on it. Even though it was going very slowly, I felt like I was racing along the road at break neck speed.
In 1998, my oldest granddaughter was Baptized in Detroit. I drove down from Idlewild. When we went into church big, fat snowflakes had started to fall. By the time we came out snow covered everything. I think this was another March snow storm.
Several years later, after a stay in Oceanside, CA, my daughter and her family moved back to Michigan. They came up to Idlewild that winter and experienced snow for the first time. Here I am pulling the same sled my sister is sitting on in the earlier photograph as another granddaughter follows.
This is one of my favorite snow pictures. I took it at the last house we lived in before moving to Atlanta. I love looking at the snow and walking in it, but driving on it is not fun, especially if it melts and freezes as ice. When I asked my husband his memories of snow he said sliding off of the road and driving to work in the snow.
We live in Atlanta now where we don’t get the big snows of Michigan but almost every year we’ve had a day or two with snow on the ground.
Timeline – 1948 Happy Birthday Pearl!
I decided to make a collage of happenings in 1948, the year my sister Pearl was born. The most surprising thing was how many of our very favorite Little Golden books came out that year. I don’t know what my mother was reading to me before 1948!
My Grandmother’s Aprons
In the 1950s, when my sister and I were in elementary school, my grandmother took us downtown to Kresge’s to pick out a mother’s day present for our mother. My grandfather must have driven us, because my grandmother didn’t drive. She suggested an apron. We picked out a beautiful red one with black binding trim around the edges and a picture of an old fashioned cast iron stove on the front pocket. I still remember going down the dark wood stairs to the basement and picking out that apron. As we grew older we realized that my mother hated receiving gifts that had anything to do with housework. (Click this link to see a photograph of the store Kresge on Woodward Ave. in Detroit, 1950s.)
My grandmother often had an apron on when we were over because she would be cooking or washing dishes. She kept them on even when posing for group photographs in the yard with out of town visitors.
Juanita Cleage’s Christmas in Athens, Tennessee
Christmas and Early Childhood
by Juanita Cleage Martin
From the book “Memories to Memoirs”
Our Christmas trees were cedar instead of pine. A bunch of kids would go together a few days before Christmas looking for Christmas trees. We would sometimes find them along the roadsides, but our special place was at Keith’s, across from Community Hospital before Community Hospital. We always found a good shapely tree in that section. I guess we didn’t realize we should ask someone. Nobody bothered, as we never seen anyone to ask. Our decoration was ropes of tinsel, and we often strung popcorn and cotton.
My favorite toy was a big doll. In our day, dolls were stuffed with sawdust, and their heads and arms were made of plastic, not like plastic of today. I remember I left it outside and the rain ruined it and made puffed splotches like blisters. I cried, as I dearly loved this doll. My sister Bea was the doctor. She gathered wild purple poke berries and covered the places. I continued to carry and play with it until it finally tore to pieces.
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Juanita Cleage Martin was the daughter of my grandfather, Albert Cleage’s brother, Charles Edward Cleage. They lived in Athens Tennessee. Juanita was born February 11, 1922. I don’t know how old she was when she got the doll for Christmas but this Cuddles doll was made from 1926 through 1928 to 1940 and sold through the Sears Catalog. Maybe this was the doll she got for Christmas. The body was cloth while the face and limbs were “composition” which was made by mixing sawdust and glue and compressing them in a mold. Composition does not react well to water. I remember a doll sort of like this that was left over from my mother and her sister’s childhood. I wonder what happened to them.
1928-1940 Cuddles or Sally-kins, 14-27″ tall, composition head, arms, legs (some limbs are rubber), cloth kapok stuffed body, molded hair, tin flirty sleep eyes, with lashes, open mouth with upper & lower teeth, tongue, mama crier, wore an organdy dress, bonnet and rubber panties, (Little Sister has flannel diapers). Made by Ideal.
For more about Juanita and her family – Mattie and children and Childhood Memories.
Childhood Memories by Beatrice Cleage Johnson – Athens, TN – 1926
This is another from the Christmas series that I am reposting from the early days of my blog. Two of my father’s first cousins, Juanita and Beatrice participated in a workshop to turn their “Memories to Memoirs” in 1990 in Athens, Tennessee. I was able to get a copy of them from my cousin Janice (Juanita’s daughter). Today I am posting Beatrice’s memories of her childhood, which sets the scene and also has some Christmas memories. Tomorrow I will post her sister Juanita’s Christmas memories.
From “Memories To Memoirs” – Chapter 2 – Early Years of Life
By Beatrice Cleage Johnson
Written in 1990
1926 – I remember the early years of my life living at 216 Ridge Street. We used wood and coal stoves for heating and cooking. I will never forget the range stove that my mother cooked on. She made biscuits every morning for breakfast. There was a warmer at the top of the stove for left overs. I would always search the warmer for snacks. We had an outside toilet. Everyone that we knew had these, so we thought this was it. We never dreamed of ever having inside plumbing.
We had a water hydrant in the front yard and every night it was my job to fill the water buckets which had stainless steel dippers in them. My sister also helped with the chores. My other job was to clean the lamp chimneys. We used oil lamps. Momma always inspected them to see if they were clean. I decided then, if I ever made any money I would have electricity put in our house. And I did. I would babysit during the summers and save my money.
I have always loved poetry. I learned many poems and stories from my mother and sisters, such as “Little Boy Blue” and “Little Red Riding Hood”. I think my favorite food was any kind of fruit. I was always happy to see Summer, when the apples and peaches were plentiful. I always looked forward to Christmas. We never saw any oranges until then. I remember my first doll. It had a china head and straw body. I loved it so much. Momma always made a special white coconut cake for Christmas, which I looked forward to. She made other pies and cakes, but the coconut was my favorite. We didn’t get too many toys for Christmas, but my sisters and I enjoyed everything we got for Christmas.
My grandfather Albert’s brother.
My father became ill and my mother was to be the sole support of the five girls. I was six years of age when my father passed away in 1926. My youngest sister, Juanita, was three years of age and she didn’t remember him, but I did. After he died my uncles took the two older sisters, Helen and Alberta, to Detroit to live with them. Alberta stayed and finished high school there, but Helen came back home and helped Momma care for the three of us. Ola, Juanita and myself went to high school here.
We always celebrated the holidays. Thanksgiving was very special as my birthday would sometimes come on Thanksgiving Day. We always had special food on these days. Pies, cakes, chicken, rabbit. On Halloween we always dressed in our older sister’s and mother’s clothes. One of the main pranks the boys would do was to push the outside toilets over. We used to beg them not to push ours over. In those days, there was no trick or treat. It was all tricks. Easter was also special. Momma would make us a new dress for Easter, and Helen always bought me black patent leather slipper.
Mary V. Graham Elkins Remembers Christmas
From 1990 until 1996 we put out a family newsletter called the Ruff Draft. In December of 1990 we solicited Christmas Memories from our readers, who were mostly relatives. This one was sent in by my mother’s older sister, Mary Virginia. In the photo are my mother Doris (1923-1982) and her sister Mary V. (1921-2009). It was taken in their backyard on Detroit’s east side.
I can remember Poppy waiting till Xmas Eve to go and get our tree. We (Doris and I) usually went with him…and bringing it home to decorate. He had a stand that he made himself. We went up to the attic to haul down boxes of decorations that had been carefully put away. Some very old. I can remember one little fat Santa that Mom always put in the window, he had a pipe in his mouth. Doris and I shared a bedroom which had the door to the attic in it. When we were at the “believe in Santa Claus stage” we thought that once we went to sleep he would tip down the attic stairs and put our toys, etc, under said tree. I think I laid awake waiting for the old boy to show up. Of course I never saw him ’cause I went to sleep, but the stuff was always under the tree. Mom was always busy in the kitchen getting stuff together for Xmas dinner and the house would be full of wonderful odors. If Xmas fell on a Sunday, we would go to church. And we used to have lots of snow. Although we came up during the depression, we always had something to eat and something under the ole tree even if it wasn’t what we asked for. It was a tradition that Xmas dinner was at our house and Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma Turner’s. Daddy cooked the ole turkey and made the most delicious stuffing. He could cook. Mom learned from him. She couldn’t boil water when they got married. Dad taught her cause he had worked in restaurants as a young man.
The Year I Was Born – 1946
Other links about my birth:
Front Page News the Day I Was Born
Friday’s Child Is Loving and Giving – My Birth
Ransom Allen
Ransom Allen was the oldest son of Dock and Eliza (Williams) Allen. He was born free in Alabama about 1860. He and his 7 siblings grew up in Montgomery. He was my great grandmother Jennie’s older brother. His father was a carpenter. His mother was a seamstress. He became a barber.
In 1883 Ransom married Callie Whitaker in Troup County, GA. I don’t know how or where they met, but she was born in Georgia. In 1888 their son, John Wesley, was born in Montgomery. John was the only one of their three children to survive childhood.
The family relocated to Chicago, IL about 1917 where Ransom continued to barber and John worked as a Mechanic. John married Bobbie Conyer and their only son, Harold Thomas, was born in 1932 in Chicago, IL.
In 1933 Ransom’s wife Callie died. The following year Ransom died at age 74. Their only grandson died in 1946 at 14 years of age. That was the end of Ransom’s branch of Dock and Eliza’s family.
