What passes for the Atkinson family homestead nowadays is disappointingly nondescript. No architectural flourishes or historical plaques set the two-flat in West Woodlawn off from its neighbors or hint at the luster of the residents within.
Inside the apartment house, however, one quickly senses the inhabitants are no ordinary family. Old curios and family art are scattered about, and if you have a sharp eye, you will note the small ceramic dog on display with a missing nose, broken off during the 1871 Fire.
It is the sorrow of Michele and Grace`s life that much of the original family data and keepsakes is now gone. Some of it had to be left behind on Vernon Avenue for the wreckers, owing to their father`s sudden death just before the move and their mother`s declining health (she died in 1956 of what appeared to have been undiagnosed cancer). Among these items were Ira`s World War I mementos and an exquisite rosewood upright piano. More family material was ruined in a basement flood in the new house in West Woodlawn.
Much has survived, however. The album is full of pictures of a tightly knit, middle-class family marking its milestones and passages as it interwove with the life of a city. There are neat lawns and knickers, proms and graduations, picnics and dance recitals, weddings, birthdays and deaths. A yellowed newspaper clipping announces the society debut of Grace, at age 18. Another reports the death in 1941 of Mary Elizabeth at 85, ”the oldest Chicago-born Negro woman living in the city,” wrote the Tribune.
There is a letter to Josephine Atkinson (Greenwood) from her real estate brokers suggesting that her asking price for a piece of property is too high; the naturalization certificate of Nellie`s husband, George Johnson, who was a native of Great Britain; a program for an evening`s entertainment sponsored by the Oriental Club and held at Turner Hall, at Van Buren and Clark Streets, in 1878, and featuring Josephine in a supporting role as the Queen of Sheba`s Lady in Waiting. The bottom of the program lists her as secretary of the Oriental Club and notes that ”The Ladies will try and make this a pleasant Evening.” There are also poignant photographs of Michele`s first child, Alan, who died at age 5 from asthma.
What Grace remembers of the family`s lifestyle is a curious blend of the aristocratic and the proletarian, brought about by the clan`s combination of pride and reduced circumstances. Thus there were trips to the Palmer House with Uncle Franklyn to buy fine dresses, and Franklyn`s insistence that Grace hold a coming-out party when she was 18 in 1943. ”Afterwards, we rolled back the rug and had a jitterbugging good time,” Grace says with a laugh.
When Grace got married, Franklyn and her dutch uncles, Billy (a theatrical ”dresser” who traveled with the road companies of such shows as
”Annie Get Your Gun”) and Mac, tried to ”outdo each other” in arranging for a long red canopy outside the home, dressmakers to craft the trousseau and lavish food for the reception. On the other hand, the family could not afford a car, a gas stove or vacations. Their chief recreation was walking to the 31st Street Beach or going to Riverview.
It is ironic that as the family has finally formalized its genealogy, it is in danger of dying out. The only descendants left are Michele, her husband, Alan, and their 18-year-old daughter, Pam; and Grace, her husband, Torrell, and Grace`s three adult children from her first marriage to the late Carey X. Miller II-Karen and twins Cathy and Carey. None of Grace`s offspring has any children. That leaves perpetuation of the clan to Pam. (The family name of Atkinson has long since succumbed to the effects of having too many daughters and bachelor sons.)
The idea for doing an Atkinson family tree arose in 1989 when Michele was going back to school at De Paul University to earn a degree in health administration. One of her classes, Cross-Cultural Relations, demanded a project of her, and it was then that the idea of seriously researching her roots was born.
”I just had a passion to do it,” says Michele, a former dance instructor who for 14 years has been an occupational therapist at Mercy Hospital and is now administrator of the hospital`s Mind/Body Medical Institute-Behavioral Medicine Program and a stress management specialist.
There began an intense collaboration with her sister, Grace, a classical pianist trained at the Chicago Conservatory of Music and retired social worker and administrator with the Illinois Department of Public Aid. Grace had much of the information needed stored in her head.
The actual photographs and old documents had been collected by family historian Franklyn, a unique person in a one-of-a-kind family. Franklyn was an antiques dealer, advertising man and interior decorator, a Clifton Webb sort of fellow who affected a British accent, favored Brooks Brothers clothing and bought filet mignon and lacey dresses for his nieces with money he should have spent on the gas bill. He slept in the family apartment in a room furnished with a French daybed and a stark white carpet set off by the floor, which he had painted black. Michele and Grace`s daughters, who because of the age difference between Grace and Michele were raised together, still recall Franklyn coaching them to say ”draw your bawth,” instead of ”take a bath.” Franklyn was official historian of Chicago`s Old Settlers Club, founded in the late 1800s. He was the impetus behind a milestone event in black cultural affairs in Chicago, the American Negro Exposition, held at the old Chicago Coliseum in the summer of 1940. Grace, who was 15 at the time, helped him hang the show, which commemorated the 75th anniversary of Negro freedom. While Franklyn, who died in 1962, provided all the raw material for the albums, it was barren of detail. ”All he had was captions, births and deaths,” Michele says. Some original research had to be done, including the examination of burial records, and perusal of census data. In the end, they still couldn`t find everything out.
”We couldn`t determine the maiden name of Cecelia, our great-great-grandmo ther,” Michele says. In vain, they sought her birth certificate, stymied by the fact that no one kept records of Native American births during the early 1800s.
Nonetheless, the Atkinson family tree is an impressive document, more so for the way the family history parallels that of Chicago. The entire project has caused the two sisters to reflect on the differences between black Chicago today and black Chicago of yesteryear.
Grace fondly recalls a Depression lifestyle of genteel poverty. There was little money, but a great deal of family and community solidarity.
”We would stay up playing whist all night and talking,” she says.
”People used to talk to each other back then. There was no television. There we were, living in this big white elephant of a house on Vernon Avenue that we couldn`t afford to keep up, living from payday to payday. My father was the only one in the family working-he was a postal clerk, and the most secure job a black man could have then was with the Post Office.
”We sometimes couldn`t afford coal to heat the house. I remember many times the lights were cut off. But it didn`t matter. We had each other,”
Grace says.
”Blacks have always had a tradition of extended family,” she notes.
”There were always people to take care of your kids, instill values and teach religion. I remember a community where everybody knew everyone else and helped each other get by. You could go next door and get a pail of water if the water bill hadn`t been paid. When those neighbors couldn`t pay their bill, you`d return the favor.
”Everyone raised the kids. You respected all the elders in the neighborhood, and you didn`t give anyone lip. And maybe no one had the money for college, but we darned well finished high school. There were no dropouts.”
”We don`t have that anymore,” Michele says. ”We have seen the disintegration of the family unit. And you will never succeed in things like school reform until the family is restored, because without a stable home, there is no one to point out the importance of education.
”That is why we are promoting our history. We want to raise the level of consciousness, so that people will start to think about these things.
”It all starts with the family,” Michele says. ”That`s what it`s all about.”
