Going Down South 1931

Cleages, Sermon Notes, Tennessee

A Way of Travel
“From the 1830s through the 1950s, people traveled in trains pulled by steam locomotives. Cars in these trains were almost always arranged in a particular order—an order that reflected social hierarchy. Coal-burning steam engines spewed smoke and cinders into the air, so the most privileged passengers sat as far away from the locomotive as possible. The first passenger cars—the coaches—were separated from the locomotive by the mail and baggage cars. In the South in the first half of the 20th century, the first coaches were “Jim Crow cars,” designated for black riders only. Passenger coaches for whites then followed. Long-distance trains had a dining car, located between the coaches and any sleeping cars. Overnight trains included sleeping cars—toward the back because travelers in these higher-priced cars wanted to be far away from the locomotive’s smoke. A parlor or observation car usually brought up the rear“

*****

Albert smoking in chair
Albert B. Cleage Jr.

My father was 18 in June of 1929 when he graduated from Northwestern High School in Detroit. That fall he entered Wayne State University. After a year, he decided he wanted to attend a black college and for a year he went to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He had been to his father’s hometown of Athens, Tennessee with his family while growing up to visit family that remained there. They always drove down, stopping with relatives or friends on the way because hotels were segregated and unavailable to black travelers. This was my father’s first time riding in a segregated Jim Crow car.

In a 1967 sermon titled “An Enemy Hath Done This“, he reminisces about this trip. I have excerpted it from the book “The Black Messiah” by Albert B. Cleage, Jr., pages 160 and 161. Published by Sheed & Ward 1968

Thoughts on a Jim Crow Car

by
Albert B. Cleage Jr.

I remember a few years ago when black folks were forced to ride in Jim Crow Cars, I went down South. It was a horrible thing to sit there in a Jim Crow car and wonder why all of us should be jammed into this little car just because we were black. It was the first time I had been down South, and I was very ignorant. I couldn’t even find the car to begin with. When you climbed into that car you had to have some kind of sinking feeling that there had to be something wrong with you. You knew the man was right because it was his train. It was his station. He was letting you ride. He had to be right. So you couldn’t help thinking that the man wouldn’t be putting me way back on this old beat-up piece of car unless there was something wrong with me.

Albert B Cleage Jr
Albert B. Cleage Jr

Even then, on a Jim Crow car, there was a better feeling than in the plush cars in which the white folks rode. Sometimes we over look those little things, but honestly, the first time I rode on a Jim Crow car I said, “This is the nicest train I have ever been on.” I was going down to Fisk, my first year in college. It was the nicest train car I have ever been on because the people had something together. We ought to have been tearing up the train because we had no business back there. But instead, we were laughing and talking and sharing our lunch, you know, the shoe box with fried chicken and soul food. You know how you how white folks act on a train, everybody taking care of his own business and looking all evil at everybody else. Well, these folks were saying, “Won’t you have some?” and walking up and down the aisle and making sure everybody did have some. With no white folks around, everyone was relaxed and friendly. I thought to myself, this is another kind of train. It is a Jim Crow thing the white man has put us in but even  here we have something he doesn’t know anything about.

That didn’t justify it because we had no business in there, sweet as it was. There was something wrong with it, and deep down inside all of us knew it. One of the things that made us friendly was the fact that we were sharing the same kind of oppression. We all hated the same man. I know you would like me to say it another way, we were unfriendly to the same man, or something. But we were together because the man forced us together, and this little Jim Crow car symbolized it. When we got off the car, it didn’t matter where the station was, we all headed straight for wherever it was black folks lived. The car was just a symbol of the life that we lived. I had never been on a Jim Crow car but I had lived in a Jim Crow community all of my life

This Segregated railway car offers a visceral reminder of the Jim Crow era
Jim Crow Journeys: An Excerpt from Traveling Black
From Jim Crow to Now: On the Realities of Traveling While Black

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The Cherry Tree – 1934

Detroit, Grahams, , ,
In tree 1934
Doris Graham

My mother in the spring of 1934 standing on a box by the cherry tree in the backyard.

Mershell C Graham picking cherries.

I’m not sure what kind of cherries these were, but here is a picture of my grandfather picking cherries the year before. If they were pie cherries, I’m sure my grandmother made pies. There was also an apple tree, a garden and chickens in their Detroit backyard.

With the chickens Mershell, Fannie and Doris.
Spring 1934. Mary V, mother, Bonzo and Doris .

My aunt Mary Vee was 13 years old. My grandmother Fannie was 46. My mother Doris was 11. Bonzo was five years old. It looks like they are just back from church service at Plymouth Congregational Church.

In 1934 they got their first car, a model A named “Lizzie”, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. My grandfather worked as a stock keeper at the Ford Motor Company Rouge Plant. My grandmother didn’t work outside of the home. Mary Vee attended Eastern high school and Doris attended Barber Intermediate school.

I remember a summer in the 1990s when my husband worked for the Michigan Department of Transportation. One year they were building Highway 31 from Pentwater to Ludington. The route went through some orchards which were doomed to be bulldozed. One July weekend we went and picked so many cherries! There were red and black and yellow and they were fully ripe. We went a few times. Never have we eaten so many cherries. So delicious and so sad the trees were destroyed.

P – PLYMOUTH Congregational Church – 1928

Lizzie

Pearl With a Tin Cup – 1950

Cleages, sepia saturday, Springfield, MA
“This is the little blue organdy dress you gave her for Christmas. She looks beautiful in it.“

It was August, 1950. We were out in the backyard. My little sister Pearl had a little tin cup. My Aunt Barbara Cleage probably sent it to her. She gave me a pair of red shoes when I was about the same age.

Pearl was one year. I was almost four.
Tea set like the one I had.

I don’t remember the little tin cup Pearl is holding, nor the rest of the tea set it came from. The tea set I remember looked like the one above. It was kept in it’s red and white box and had been made-in-occupied Japan. While looking for a photo of it, I found that it was lusterware. I had just read a book where the woman had a prize lusterware set. I had no idea what it was. It wasn’t something we played with everyday, being special and used rarely for little tea drinking. The set lasted until I was grown up with children of my own.

When my oldest daughter was about two or three years old, she and her dad went to Detroit and visited my parents. I don’t remember why I didn’t go. Probably because Jilo was able to fly free in those days. My mother sent send the tea set back with her. One by one my daughters dropped them piece by piece. The last piece was the teapot. I use to keep it on a small shelf in my kitchen when we lived in Mississippi. It’s gone now. Disappeared.

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History of Ohio Art Company

Lustreware Ceramics

1950 Census – I was there!

The Snake

Biography, Cleages, Photographs, ,

I used to like making small places outside. The first one I remember was under the back porch when we lived in a two family flat on Calvert in Detroit. The porch above wasn’t high enough up for me to stand up, but it wasn’t so low I had to crawl in. I found bricks around and built a two or three brick high wall around two sides. I don’t remember doing much out there after I got it together. I was about nine years old at that time. My sister remembers playing marbles there. I did make a nice, smooth dirt floor.

Me beside my quilt tent, held up on the former chicken house with bricks.

In Poppy’s and Nanny’s yard we made tents out of quilts. We would use them for the duration of whatever game we were playing. My Quilt Tent – 1958

Later when we lived on Oregon, I built a snow house against the garage one winter. Again, I don’t remember hanging around in it. After all it was winter in the 1950s when winter was freezing and snowy for months. I also cleaned up the garage and fixed it up as a place I could go. But it was a garage and I remember the smell wasn’t that pleasant. Rats around the garbage cans? I never saw any, but I gave that one up.

Building the stick and leaf hut.

At Old Plank, I made a stick frame and wove large leaves into it. As you can see I even built a campfire circle of stones and had a fire going at least once.

Enjoying a campfire in front of the hut.
Henry holding the long snake found in the hut

One morning I came out and found a snake curled comfortably inside. It was cool and the snake was sluggish. Henry did what he always did when coming upon a snake, he killed it. I don’t remember the particulars, did he beat it to death or did he shoot it? What sort of snake was it? Above he is holding it up for the photographer, probably my mother. I do remember an incident decades later in Idlewild when Henry did kill a snake at my Aunt Barbara’s with a blow as I tried to persuade him it was a harmless snake that ate mice. He paid me no mind.

Lizzie

Detroit, Grahams, sepia saturday,
A model A Ford that looks like Lizzie

When I decided to write about my grandfather Mershell’s car, Lizzie, I thought it was a model T, but when I went looking at pages that tell you how to tell whether a car is a model “A” or model “T”, and what year it was made in, I found that based on the shape of the headlights, the bumper, the running board and the doors, that it was a Model “A” Tudor sedan and built in 1931. I was happy to find the note below in my grandfather’s little notebook. I remembered various stickers on the back window and thought it must have been purchased used and the note also mentions that.

Lizzie stats
From Poppy’s notebook – Ford Car – Model A Motor  No – 3068244 License No. 13-520 –  1934 Mileage when purchased 43.985 miles
My grandmother, aunt Mary Vee and Doris (my mother). Lizzie from the back. Click to see full photo.
Lizzie with 3 generations
Lizzie from the front in the background. My great grandmother, Great Aunt Daisy, Grandmother Fannie, Aunt Mary V. and my mother Doris.

Lizzie, my grandfather Poppy’s old Model A Ford, was the first car that was a regular part of my life. We didn’t have our own family car until I was eight. Lizzie was black with a running board and awning-striped shades on the windows. We pulled them down when we changed for swimming at Belle Isle.

Poppy didn’t have a garage. The back of his yard was taken up in a large vegetable and flower garden with a winding path and bird feeder, so he rented a garage from a neighbor across the alley. Was it the family with all the kids?  I don’t remember. I do remember my mother telling me one of their sons mentioned to Poppy something about his pretty granddaughter and I figured she was going to say Dee Dee, my older, beautiful cousin. At the time I was skinny with glasses and hair in two braids. I was truly surprised when she said he was talking about me. Come to think of it, he was skinny with glasses too. Anyway, I don’t remember ever talking or playing with him or any of my grandparent’s neighbors. We stayed in the house or yard making up plays, building fairy castles, playing imaginary land and swinging.

In Poppy's garden
Pearl, Barbara, Kristin with Poppy in the garden.

Back to Lizzie. Poppy did not drive to and from work. He worked as a stock clerk at the River Rouge Ford Plant, quite a distance from home. He caught the bus. According to Google maps that trip takes over an hour now. Bus or streetcar service might have been more direct in the old days. I hope it was. The car was used on the weekends to do errands on Saturday and to go to Church on Sunday. I remember riding in Lizzie with my grandfather to go to Plymouth Church where he was a founder, a Deacon and the man who fixed the furnace and put up bulletin boards and everything between. We would run around and explore the empty church while he worked.

My sister Pearl’s memory

I remember the back window had a little shade you could pull down. I remember loving the running board because you could stand up on them and look around before climbing in. And I remember when we went with Ma and Poppy to trade it in and one of the doors flew open. I wish they’d kept it. (Note: As I remember it, the car door the door of our old gray Ford Betsy flew open as we drove into the parking lot to trade it in on a later model used car, not Lizzie.)

Car/train crash
From my grandfather’s notebook.

Car struck by M.C. (note:  Michigan Central) engine  Mar. 10th 1935
At 2:15 P.M. Doris in car with me.
No one hurt very bad.
Doris received small cut on left hand
M.C. RR settled for $25.00 part cost on fixing car.

Sunday, March 10, 1935 was a cold, rainy spring day. My grandfather and my twelve year old mother, Doris were on the way home. They were crossing the railroad tracks when they were struck by a Michigan Central railway engine.

My sister Pearl remembers: The train was backing up. They were crossing the tracks headed home. Poppy didn’t see it because it was on his blind eye side. Ma saw it but didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him. How crazy is that?!?!?

Lizzie crosses the tracks a few blocks from home before being struck.
My mother with her aunt Alice. 1935. With Lizzie.
1933 Poppy in yard with Bonzo
Poppy and Bonzo in yard. 1933

 

all of us at zoo
Some of us rode in Lizzie to the zoo. Marilyn in front, Barbara and Pearl next; in back row, my mother, my aunt MV, Cousin Dee Dee and me. About 1956.

Cousin Marilyn’s memories

My cousin Marilyn was the youngest of the cousins. Before she started school she used to spend the week at my grandparents while her parents worked. Poppy would drive her back home for the weekend. Her memories are below.

Marilyn and Poppy about this time.

Hey cuz, yes I remember LIzzie, the dark blue car!? I was always embarrassed to be in that old car when Poppy would bring me home to Mama’s for the weekend. I was just a little girl. I remember ducking down in the seat when we would come down Calvert. Those mean kids would say “Why your Grandpa got that old car? It’s so ugly!” Or something to that effect.

My cousin Dee Dee had so many memories, I gave her a separate post here -> Lizzie Part 2
How to identify Model “A”

Cars
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Lizzie Part 2

Detroit, Grahams

These are my cousin Dee Dee’s memories of Lizzie. You can see more about Lizzie in Part 1

My cousin Dee Dee McNeil remembers Lizzie

Our grandfather called his Model T Ford “Lizzie.” I always referred to Poppy’s car as a Model T Ford, but when I looked up the photos, I think his car might have been a little later Ford Model B or Model 40.  This I decided after looking at photos of the Ford Motor Company 4- cylinder engine, 2-door cars. Lizzie was all black.

Just about every Sunday morning, me, my sisters (and sometimes our two cousins, Kris and Pearl) climbed up on the running board and piled into the backseat of Poppy’s historic black Ford that rumbled down Theodore Street on the East Side of Detroit, Michigan, towards Plymouth Congregational Church.  Our grandfather, who we called ‘Poppy,’ always drove, with his wife Fannie Graham sitting proudly in the passenger seat by her man’s side.  Unlike the youthful looking grandmother’s of today, our soft spoken, proud grandma always looked like a grandmother.  Her gray hair was always neatly braided into two braids that were bobby-pinned across the top of her head.  Her blue veins shown through slender hands with long, delicate fingers and when she was upset, her lips were pursed in a straight, stubborn line across her sweet face.  Every Sunday, in the summertime, (when we often stayed at our grandparent’s home) we rode in Lizzie to church and then to the cemetery to visit the graves of my mother’s two brothers who died as children.  In our innocence, we thought that lovely, well-kept cemetery was our private park, as we body-rolled down the slightly sloping hillsides, arms and legs flailing past the cemetery markers.

In the back yard.
My grandparents, Fannie & Mershell Graham in their yard, 1958.

I don’t remember Lizzie having leather seats or being fancy.  The seats were of some sort of cloth, because Nanny (our grandmother) used to sew and repair the small rips and tears.  She also darned Poppy’s socks, using a plastic egg and she taught me how to do the same as a young child of maybe eight or nine years old.  I remember, when I was older, nearing my teen years, several hippie looking, young, white boys used to drive up next to Poppy’s old iron car and roll down their windows to shout at him. 

“I’d love to buy your car.  Is it for sale?” 

Poppy always kept Lizzie sparkling clean and well kept.  If it was a cold morning before church, he’d have to let her run for 2-3 minutes before we took off. 

“She’s got to have her engine warmed up,” he’d tell me as he adjusted the ‘choke.’  Those cars had a throttle and a choke you adjusted by hand.  I think that old collectible car lasted so long because of Poppy’s good care and the fact that he never took it on the freeway.  He always putt-putted down the avenues at about twenty-five to thirty-miles per hour, much to the frustration of those driving behind him.  Several times I saw impatient, rude, and irate drivers pull around him and call him everything but a child of God for driving the speed limit.  I’d cringe, but he’d just whistle a tune, as though they were invisible and keep driving at his slow rate of speed.  There was always the slightest smell of gasoline and oil in the backseat of Lizzie.  Underneath the carpeted floor there were wooden floors.  All four cousins could curl up in that back seat of Poppy’s old Ford and we’d sing songs or giggle, the way little girls do, over little to nothing.  I remember there was a little switch on the wall inside the car that could turn on the overhead, inside light. Lizzie was a familiar ride and we felt safe and comfortable in that Ford Model “A”, until my Aunt Doris, (my mom’s sister) finally persuaded her dad to sell that car and step into the 2nd half of the twentieth century.  Today, those old Fords are a hot-rodder’s dream.

Read Part I here Lizzie

The Cleage’s View A Plane – 1921

Cleages, Detroit, sepia saturday, , , , , , ,
Looking at a plane in a field about 1921

This week’s Sepia Saturday features an old airplane.  I have two photographs of a small, old plane in my Cleage collection.  Unfortunately there is nothing written on the back of either photo but I recognize my aunt Barbara – the baby in white, and the edge of my great grandmother Celia on the right edge.  

Plane in field about 1921
Another view of the plane.

Here is a photograph of my family standing in a field in Detroit, about 1921.

Standing in a field

My grandfather Dr. Albert B. Cleage, Sr holding baby Barbara. next to him in my father Albert Jr, standing to the far right is my great grandmother, Albert Senior’s mother. My uncle Louis is front left, Henry is between Louis and Hugh who is standing with his hands on his hips.

My grandmother and great grandmother look tired out.

Front row: my uncle Louis and my father Albert. In the back row: My grandmother Pearl holding baby Barbara, Henry, Hugh, Great grandmother Celia. My aunt Barbara was born July 10, 1920 in Detroit, Michigan.

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Related Air around Detroit in 1922

Air Race – Detroit October 1922

Selfridge Field and the beginnings of air power

Sailing Log Detroit River – 1970

Cleages, sepia saturday, ,

Today day I am going to share my mother’s boating log. In 1970, when this log was written, my mother Doris Graham Cleage was 46 and taught reading at Duffield Elementary School. Henry was 54 and Deputy Director of Neighborhood Legal Services. They lived in a two family flat on Fairfield, near the University of Detroit. My maternal grandparents lived in the flat downstairs.

In July 1970, they bought a used sailboat. They docked it at the Memorial Park Marina, now called Erma Henderson Marina and no longer in use.

Detroit River from the deck
Captain Henry Cleage
First Mate Doris Graham Cleage

5/16 Henry sails in heavy seas with former owner Lindquist – Bell Harbor, New Baltimore to Bun (note: not clear) Sailboats, St. Clair Shores.

5/21 Henry and Hugh sailed from Bun (note: not clear) Sailboats, St. Clair Shores, to Memorial Park Marina (Spent 2 hours trying to start motor – found gas was not connected!) – Lonnie and I met – I went to meeting. – Lonnie brought Barbara (his wife) back – all had chicken and wine on boat!

5/23 Henry & Doris out alone – turned wrong way – banged around north end of marina – saved by all – tacked up American Channel – a thousand tacks – I had no gloves – hands in shreds – turned back near water Sutake (note: not clear) tower.

Boat in dock. Jeffersonian apartments behind, Kean apartment to the left. I was able to identify the marina using those buildings.

5/25 Henry, Doris, Hugh out – banged around marina! Doris insisted on staying in river (!) – tacked like mad – disorganized – returned to shore to organize crew – vowed to do better.

(All betimes Henry and Hugh worked on motor – fixed door – began to sand for varnishing – bought blue towels for curtains and pillows.)

5/30 Henry, Doris and Hugh – went out to try to empty head at Mobil at end of channel – water churned to froth by 50,000 cruisers bounced around – came back – no sail.

First mate – Doris Graham Cleage

6/19 Henry, Doris and Lonnie – sailed out jib alone just over edge of lake and back.

6/20 Henry, Doris, Hugh, Ernie – sailed out – dumped – wind died – limped in – saw others wing and wing – they looked like galleons – discovered whisker pole – resolved to use it at earliest opportunity!

6/22 Henry, Doris, Hugh – out into Lake St. Clair – Doris refused rope, when leaving dock, asked where is my pole? – all small ropes still tied, on jib furler, on mainsail – captain tacked back and forth across freighter channel – Hugh almost ran down black pirate boat – had bologna sandwiches, oreos, peaches, milk, coffee, gin – mainsail stops twisted – captain had to straighten out on high seas!

Captain Henry Cleage

6/27 – Hugh, Henry and Doris out to sail – no wind – fathometer broken – Hugh and Henry fixed – good thing because decided to motor about Peche Isle where depths are 1 – 2 ft out to 1,000 ft and 4 – 5 ft a few yards from shore – also 35 ft depths (!) near 405 ones – found nice anchorage on South side – close enough to swim – but no suits – so, ate, laid around and came back.

6/28 Ernie, Hugh, Hugh and Doris at dock to see unlimited hydroplane races – wild – Thelma and Bowman on Board later.

Marina, Belle Isle Bridge, Peche Island, Lake St. Claire, Detroit River, labeled.

6/30 Very hot – 98 degrees – no wind – motored down river to Belle Isle Bridge for first time – lovely cool ride- equally cool docking and undocking – Lonnie, Barbara, Henry and Doris.

7/3 Bought dinghy at Sears – now can anchor and go into Peche – swabbed whole boat first time – also vacuumed second time – now ship-shape and shinning – and thunderstorm after thunderstorm – hard to restrain captain who insists, “Weather does not matter to a seaworthy craft and a skilled captain.” Hear! Hear! and Right on! But I was scared! So we stayed dockside. stowed well away from shallows – sailed to 82 degrees 47′ W at 20 degree angle usually – First Mate sent to galley. – sort of rocky down there altho’ not on deck – fixed sandwiches but couldn’t eat (!) recovered quickly on deck – liverwurst was delicious – turned back – near sunset – wind began to die – started across freighter channel – HUGE BARGE advancing rapidly – Captain made speeches about “right of way” – refused to start motor – barge gave us 5 short blasts (note: Five short and rapid blasts = “Danger signal, I do not understand your intentions”)– Captain capitulated – started motor – ended trip with usual perfect docking.

P. S. – at one point in voyage captain to first mate – “Take in the jib.” First Mate to Captain, “How much?” Look of complete disbelief on Captain’s face – he is at loss for words. I thought he wanted me to furl the jib – he meant winch it in tighter. Narrowly missed being keelhauled!

7/9 Note from radio: add 34″ to depths shown on chart #400 Lake St. Clair! What it mean?

Captain Henry

7/10 Nautical catalogs arrived – Capt. was so engrossed he read them all thru dinner! First mate furious.

7/11 Henry, Hugh & Doris out on calm day – captain offered Doris sun glasses instead of rope as we left dock. Cruised happily out into lake – noted strange black, orange white can buoys – navigator almost fainted – we were crossing Grosse Pointe Dumping Grounds – never, never land with completely uncertain depths – naturally we crossed it diagonally – and made it just as the wind gave up – dragged to Peche Isle – anchored Canadian side Henry and Hugh inflated dinghy – Capt took first trip – rain began – brief shower – made it home. – First mate denied daily tot of rum because she dropped boat book in water – luckily it floated,

7/12 Henry and Doris out alone – beautiful sail to end of Belle Isle, – 5-6 mph – really lifted out of water – reaching on SW wind, – suddenly saw huge black cloud looming over Grosse Pointe – First mate screamed, “Take me home NOW!”- Captain said, “Oh, it’s nothing’ the weatherman said today would be nice.” – Then sun went out – thunder rolled- lightening zagged – First mate and captain sprang into action – furled jib – hauled down main – motored madly with seven thousand other fear crazed Sunday sailors down river – made it into dock drenched to skin – as 60 mph gusts of wind made Henry, Warren Hawking and Crawford Smith putting all muscle on boat to attach back lines – she had nosed into dock at tool chest and refused to budge – finally got her tied down – very wet inside and out- home – hot showers – lovely evening followed lovely sail.

7/26 On board – Henry and Doris. Beautiful Sunday. Captain assured first mate on long trip planned. Set out on short sail – ended in Belle River, Ontario – for the night. Fifteen miles of very close reaching in five hours – and three hours covered same distance Monday morning – docking was cool – sleep was good after young folks finally left park at 1:30 a.m. – our first overnight trip.

Belle River

8/1 Brisk winds -choppy waves – tough, Captain – rough sail! – scuppers awash – First mate developed weak trembles – Captain cool!

8/2 On board, Hugh, Henry and Doris. Same weather as 8/1 – rough – but no scuppers (note: an opening in the side walls of a vessel, allows water to drain instead of pooling ) awash this time – good trip.

8/6 Out to Lake St. Clair – Henry and Doris – fussed! – back to dock!

Location of Riverside Marina in Ontario, Canada. Erma Henderson Marina = Memorial Park Marina

8/7 Out again. Henry and Doris. No fuss – anchored off Riverside, Canada.

Doris and Henry’s brother Hugh.

8/8 Hugh, Henry and Doris out in choppy St. Clair to Belle River – much fighting waves – found Belle River jammed with boats – docked cooly – tied with many a rope.

8/9 Awoke Sunday to brisk wind over starboard stern – very heavy seas- warped her around cooly at dock – rolled madly as soon as we left breakwater – white caps – 2-4 feet rolling waves – made 4-5 mph on jib, alone until wind died at Peche Isle – waves rolled under all the way – captain did masterful job of keeping course and running directly in front of large swells which increased our speed 1 mph when they passed under us – sort of a roller coasted ride home – with accent on the roll! Good trip!

END OF LOG

Jilo sleeping
verso

“Jilo fast asleep on our sailboat while Henry and Hugh babysit”

The only thing I remember about this visit of my daughter and myself to the boat is that we didn’t go out on the river because Jilo was too little for a life jacket. She was about a year old.

Not long after, they sold the boat. Henry had pictured solitary days of sailing, stopping here and there to enjoy the peace and quiet. Unfortunately there were always many other boats out there.

sepia saturday boats
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Links

Marine Chart of the area covered in the Log.

Train Journal – 2001

Biography, sepia saturday

In 2001 I drove from Idlewild, Michigan down to Atlanta and across to Oceanside California with my oldest daughter and her two toddlers. I took a train up to Seattle to visit my second daughter and then took the train back to Michigan. This is an account of that last part of the trip from my journal.

Train ride through the Rockies. Photo by Kristin Cleage

Thursday June 28

leaving Seattle. Sat around with Ife and Mike waiting for 3:30 to leave for the train station. Ate leftover chili for breakfast. Watched a “thriller.” We went up on the roof for the first time and took photos of park, skyline and water. Sun got so bright we went down. Mike went and got water and tooth paste for me. Ife was nervous all day in case I missed the train. Took cab to station. Mariners game.

At the train station a girl with her mother was across from us. She was watching us. We were watching her.

Sleeper is small. – two seats, table window. Makes into lower and upper bunk. Much comfier than couch! Bathroom down hall and down stairs. Dinner – salmon, wild rice, potato, apple juice, apple crisp, veggies.

Scenery – very different on western half of Cascades, lush, green, moss and ferns, much dryer and more barren on East side. Fruit tree area on barren side. Trees must be irrigated. Food supply for U.S. long term NOT looking good! Puget sound – people clamming? Tide out. Water, water. Beautiful. This land is your land, this land is my land.

June 29, Friday

Woke up in Montana. Isolated cabins on the sides of wooded mountains. Mountain, rushing streams, line of parked cars in the middle of no where, a deer on the side of the tracks, pine trees, poplar or is it aspen? “Big Sky” low clods.

The Chinese American steward had a laugh this morning with the Irish woman across the aisle. He’d thought she’d be Chinese. Robert E. Lee wasn’t Chinese,” she pointed out, a bit peevishly. I woke around 7:30 (6:30 Seattle time) Yawn. Could have slept longer.

Mountains and feather pines. So close together. The highway right below. A stream leads up up up the mountains to a meadow. “I knew the mountains would make you well.”

Breakfast of yogurt parfait.

On closer view what appears to be meadow may be bushes. At least that’s what the one we passed was. Going through open covered tunnels? Bridges? Better then the dark holes.

Rock is gray, slate like layers, dirt was mauve this morning. Began taking photos. Why didn’t I do that all along??? what a waste Oh well. Jilo and Ife have both expressed an interest in cross country travel.

Down the corridor a couple discuss their vacations and train trips. The rocks do look like the earths bones. Are we lower or higher? Trees are smaller, fewer, more grass. Gods golf course out there?

Montana high plains. Rutted dirt roads come out of fields to the track. Several piles of dumped household trash. Irrigation. Houses, small alone. A man with orange flags. Clouds so low I could reach out the window and touch them.

Sage brush again everywhere.

June 30,2001 Saturday

We’re in the Minniapolis/St. Paul station. Midway on the N/S axis of earth.

Arrived in Chicago. Walking from the train to the waiting room passed a man hollaring a train was leaving for Grand Rapids! Asked and found it was my train. Got loaded on.

Four teachers returning from a conference in Grand Rapids. Two white and two black. Back and forth about conference.

Family of Grandma, two grown daughters and three or four kids (little) got on. The kids were tired. One little girl broke out crying, she wanted to put her pjs on right then. After awhile they put them on her. Brother fell asleep.

Almost got stuck in the bathroom. Couldn’t figure how to get it unlocked at first. When train stopped, everyone moved to the exit but the train wasn’t really ready to unload us. I sat back down and another lady sat down too. She had come on the same train I had but just from Minnesota. She was going to visit her grandkids.

Jim was waiting at the station with the van full of groceries when I got there. It was very hot and muggy. It sprinkled a little on the way, but no real rain. We cooked and ate when we got home.

I was glad to be home, but not this particular house and location.