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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Other links about my birth:
Front Page News the Day I Was Born
Friday’s Child Is Loving and Giving – My Birth
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.
My first inclination on thinking of a post for this final episode of “Many Rivers To Cross” was to make a list and talk about all the things Gates didn’t mention. It was getting so long that I decided I wasn’t going to do that. This did spark a lively discussion between my daughters, my husband and myself on Thanksgiving Day.
There was something in my archives that related to this last episode directly – some clippings about “Detroit’s First Survival Day”, a food give-a-way by the Black Panther Party. I was never in the Panthers, I knew some of them and worked with some of them when I was part of the Black conscience Library. I showed a few films put out by the California branch. One line I remember about organizing, “… house by house, block by block, city by city across this racist nation…”. The Detroit Panthers were about 10 years younger than the leaders of the California Panthers. While Huey P. Newton was 30 in 1972, the Detroit Panthers were in their late teens and early 20s.
To read other African American bloggers posting about the “Many Rivers To Cross Series”, plus a link to my other posts in the series CLICK HERE!
So far I have written six posts describing my DNA findings. Here are links. I am working on a couple of more.
My Matrilineal Line and More May 27, 2010
My 23and Me DNA Test Results September 27, 2011
Seven Generations of L3e3b – My Mtdna May 13 2013
Seven Generations of L3e2a1b1 – My Grandmother Pearl’s Mtdna May 16, 2013
Revisiting My 23and Me DNA findings May 17, 2013
Eight Generations of L3b Mtdna from Celia Rice Cleage May 18 2013
In the latest episode of Many Rivers To Cross, the Great Migration was briefly discussed. It got me to thinking about my family who pretty much all left the south in the early 1900s. I wrote an earlier series about the Graham side of my family and their move from Montgomery, Alabama to Detroit in 1917. You can read about that at these links:
To continue the story, I will start by writing about my Grandfather Albert B. Cleage and his siblings move from Athens, TN to Indianapolis, IN and finally to Detroit, Michigan, with mention of Uncle Edward Cleage and his family who remained in Athens.
Next I will cover my Grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage and the Reed family’s move from Lebanon, KY first to Indianapolis in the 1890s and on to Benton Harbor and Detroit, Michigan, with Uncle Hugh (Reed) Averette moving out to Los Angeles California.
Finally I will write about Eliza and Dock Allen’s children leaving Montgomery for Chicago, Detroit and New York.
I wanted to add my husband’s family, not sure if I will write them up soon though. They started in Dermott, AR. Catherine Williams went to Seattle, WA. Vennie Jean Williams went to Arkadelphia. Sterling Williams spent time in Little Rock before going to Chicago. Chester and Theola (my in-laws) moved to St. Louis, MO. Members of both the Davenports and the Williams migrated to Chicago. Many relatives remained in rural AR, although none of my husband’s aunts or uncles.
As I write I will probably come up with stories within stories. This should provide me with writing material for weeks!
To see other posts I’ve written about this series , click this link My Responses to Many Rivers to Cross. You will also find links to other bloggers responding to this series by sharing their own personal family stories.
For those interested, I found the map I used at this site about the Great Migration.