My sister Pearl ready for a Christmas Party -Advent Calendar December 7

We didn't have Christmas parties.  We didn't have any parties of the kind where you invite people over to socialize. We did gather on holidays and for birthdays but those were family affairs.  However, I did come up with this photograph of my sister Pearl all dressed up for some sort of formal party. We can see it's Christmas because of the card display on the mantel.  It was the winter of 1966. I wonder what my mother is talking to her about. She looks rather dressed up too. I still have that chair and it's mate. Today is Pearl's birthday so I thought it was appropriate to post this photo on several levels. Perhaps Pearl will see this and remember what party she was going to. It was going to be wordless but apparently not.

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories of Santa Claus

My cousin, Warren Cleage Evans, checking Santa's beard. I think it's about 1952.  

Read last years Santa post HERE.

Week 49 Historical Events - 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History

Week 49.  Historical Events.  Describe a memorable national historical event from your childhood.  How old were you and how did you process this event?  How did it affect your family? 

Me in the upper left corner. News photos from 1963.

In 1963 I was 16 and a junior at Northwestern High School in Detroit.  In the news were pictures of dogs  attacking people who were peacefully demonstrating, high pressure hoses being used on people who were peacefully demonstrating, bombings of homes and churches, people being abused while sitting at lunch counters, people  being arrested. Governor George Wallace of Alabama, stood in the door to block the integration of the University of Alabama. Women were dragged from demonstrations to the paddy wagon. Medgar Evers was murdered in Jackson, MS in front of his home. Four girls were blown up while attending Sunday school in Birmingham, Alabama.   Two teenage boys were killed during the rioting afterwards.  There were two gigantic demonstrations that year, the Detroit Walk to Freedom followed by the March on Washington. Both drew over 100,000. President Kennedy was assassinated. Lee Harvey Oswald was killed, Cassius Clay who had not yet become Muhammad Ali was winning fight after fight. Malcolm X was speaking out and Martin Luther King, Jr was arrested in Birmingham, AL.  Here and there people began to wear their hair in  afros. In Detroit, the Freedom Now Party was seeking petitions to get on the ballot for the 1964 election and  Malcolm X spoke at the Grassroots Conference.

How did all of this affect me and my family?  I was angry but I also felt I was part of the struggle of the black community. I wondered why the federal government didn't send troops down south to protect people who wanted to vote. I wrote revolutionary poetry. It wasn't very good poetry. My family talked about everything that was happening. They were publishing the Illustrated News during that time and wrote about changes that had to come and the movement of the struggle from the south to the north and what the differences would be as this happened. Ossie and Ruby Davis, James Baldwin, John O. Killens, Clarence Jones, Odetta, and others formed the Association of Artists for Freedom, which called for a Christmas boycott to protest the church bombing, and asked that people, instead of buying gifts,  make Christmas contributions to civil rights organizations. I remember we participated in the boycott but I don't remember anything else about that Christmas.  I will have to ask around and see if anybody else remembers what we did on Christmas Day, 1963. To be continued.

Thanksgiving - 1991, Idlewild, Michigan - Part 2

Our house in Idlewild from the lake side.

After I wrote my Thanksgiving 1991 post several days ago, I talked to several people about what they remembered. Some remembered nothing. Several others remembered the snow, Zaron with his head wrapped in a towel and the status discussion. Someone remembered it was Christmas but I was lucky enough to have the Ruff Draft article saying it was Thanksgiving.  A reason to keep a journal or a family newsletter.

Yesterday I was reading the post "Had to Walk Home in the Snow" on the blog A Hundred Years Ago. The blog is set up so that it always begins with a diary entry by Helena Muffy in 1911 and is followed by information her granddaughter, Sheryl, has found that relates to the entry.  This entry was about Helena Muffy walking home from church in the snow. Sheryl followed with a weather service report about conditions in that area on just that day!  Sheyl was nice enough to explain to me how I could find the information for Thanksgiving, 1991 in Lake County, Michigan.  I highly recommend this blog.

According to the chart from the National Climatic Data Center it started snowing on Nov. 24 and left us 4 inches. We got another inch on Nov. 25.  By Thanksgiving there were still 3 inches on the ground. By the following Monday the snow had changed to rain and the snow was all gone.  

And for my daughter, Jilo, I add these photographs of Pearl in her yellow shirt and Zeke with his head wrapped in a towel.

"I look the same now." Part 2

I've spent some time looking through my Graham grandparents photographs for a clue to the identity of the Mystery Nurse.  I came across one photograph, unfortunately also unidentified, that looks to me like it could be the same person. Who is she is still the question.  To read Part 1 click here.  If you read the first article early, I later added additional information about the General Negro Hospital and a photograph of some of the nurses.  They are wearing the same uniform as "Sister".  

Is this the same woman?

This is what I can make out now...

"Made in K.C. Mo. 

but just found a 

duplicate and had 

this developed 10-(3)0-1918. 

Over 1 yr ago. 

Your Sister M.G.F. (or T?)

A and M C(olle)ge   

Normal Ala."

"I look the same now."

I found this photograph in my Graham album.  I have no idea who it is. I don't know who's sister it is. I know it isn't my grandmother Fannie's sister because I would recognize them.  I don't think it's my grandfather Mershell's sister because as far as I know she was a servant with several children by 1918.  I looked for information about nursing schools for African Americans Kansas City, MO. in 1918 and turned up nothing, but Zann, a friend of mine, found several short pieces and some photos of the General Hospital for Negroes in Kansas.  The uniforms the nurses are wearing look the same uniforms. So, here is my mystery nurse for this weeks Sepia Saturday.  For more Sepia Saturday offerings click HERE.  For Part 2 of "I look the same now." click here.

"I look the same now. Sister."

I can't make most of this out very well, but here is what I make of it "Made in K.C. Mo. but just found a duplicate and had this developed - 10-10-1918. Over..........your....F. A dm.........Normal Ala."

 For the original articles that go with the photos, click They came to fight and Along the color line.