Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Bishop/Carey Family Photo Album - Oh What a Find!

This last weekend hubby and I hit the Ramona Flea market in Jacksonville.  I found an old photo album full of photos.  It wasn't until I got home and really examined it and spent some time on Google did I discover just how important this family photo album could be.

I am not sure which family member owned the album or how it ever got separated from family members, but I hope to find some living descendants.

Does the name Rev. Archibald Carey, Sr. or his son Rev. Archibald Carey, Jr ring any bells? How about Rev. Shelton Hale Bishop?  Honestly, I never heard of them before, but I am learning all about them now.


Rev. Bishop was the fifth rector of  St. Philip's Church in Harlem, the second oldest black congregation in the Episcopal Church. He was a driving force behind founder, well-known psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, in the establishment of  the Lafargue Clinic in 1946. It was housed in St. Philip's providing counseling and psychotherapy for Harlem residents at a cost of 25 cents per visit. It was the first mental health clinic in the world to serve people of color. It operated from the end of WWII until the 1960s when Elizabeth Bishop Davis, MD, a volunteer at the clinic and daughter of Rev. Shelton Bishop, became the first Chief of Psychiatry at Harlem Hospital.




Rev. Bishop was married to the sister of Rev. Archibald Carey. After today I will post one page at a time and share what I have learned about this family.



23 comments:

  1. I hope a family member contacts you!

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  2. Adele Logan AlexanderMay 27, 2011 at 8:11 PM

    Leslie Ann,
    Long before my birth, my uncle, Warren Logan, Jr. was married to Rev. Shelton Bishop's sister Augusta. They were married until Warren's death in 1924. My family, the Logans, were friends of Shelton, his other sister Vicki Bishop Schuster, and his daughter Beth Bishop Davis who was a colleague of my father, Arthur, and aunt, Mayra Logan, both of whom were doctors at harlem Hospital.

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    4. Your father treated some heavy folks - Duke, Jackie Robinson, and MLK. How beautiful!

      U.M.M.G. ("Upper Manhattan Medical Group")
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeeOYCq36Zo

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    5. Carey Jr was my Grandfather. Carey Sr my Great-Grandfather. Do you still have these photos? Are you willing to share digital copies with me?

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  3. I found your blog via Dee Welborn and enjoy what you are doing here! It's tough work finding families for heirlooms. I have a silver baby cup I have been working on for some time, and know about dead ends! I look forward to following along on your work.

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  4. Hi Leslie Ann,
    I found your blog after googling Beth Bishop Davis Trussel. Thank you for posting these pictures - Beth's grandfather (Hutchens Chew Bishop) was my grandfather's grandfather. I love seeing the old family photos!
    Thanks again,
    Tamson Smith

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  5. Hi Tamson,

    I'm glad you enjoyed the photos!

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  6. Do you have any photos of Hutchens Bishop. I am doing a history of Mt. Calvary/St Mary teh Virgin in Baltimore, in which his family were prominent members.

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    1. Ms. Podles, I would love to know about this connection! I am a vestry member of St. Philip's Episcopal. Dr. Beth Davis Trussell took me under her wing as a parishioner, friend and also she was a member of the board of Weston United-an outgrowth of St. Philip's where I worked for 8 years.

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  7. I am Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, daughter of Harold BISHOP Dillon and granddaughter of Nellie Scott Bishop Dillon, also of Kentucky. Being the first born grandchild this generation I grew up hearing ALL the stories of the Bishops, plus many other relatives that I won't list here. I would add that Shelton Hale Bishop was the cousin of Vertner Woodson Tandy, also born in Lexington, KY, who went to Cornell University and was one of "the Seven Jewels" who founded the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity in 1906 at Cornell, the first African-American Fraternal organization. Tandy was the first African-American to be a registered architect in New York state and designed St. Phillips in Harlem. The story/"joke" in the family is that of course Bishop had Tandy as the architect for the church because as his cousin he wouldn't have to pay him for it. Tandy was a member of the parish as well. Tandy first went to Tuskegee before attending Cornell. My grandmother, Nell Scott Bishop (Dillon) also attended Tuskegee where Dr. George Washington Carver was her faculty advisor. (she would do her graduate education in Colorado) The majority of her academic career was on the faculty at Langston University, in Oklahoma. Additionally her older son, my Uncle Mozell Agustus Dillon, who also became an architect would design a number of buildings (pro-bono) for the school. My father, Harold Bishop Dillon, became an engineer. He was a year younger than his brother, "Gus". This is noteworthy as Gus became one of the eight plantiffs for Thurgood Marshall filing against the University of Oklahoma in 1948- part of the legal architecture of cases that William Henry Hastings and Charles Hamilton Houston planned for Marshall leading up to Brown V. Board of Education 1954). On the other hand, due in part to the success of that effort, my father was among the first class of graduate students at Oklahoma State for his Master's in Engineering. Gus received his Master's in Architecture at the University of Nebraska, having been denied admission by the Attorney General of Oklahoma in 1948. By the way they both learned to fly and were in the second round of Tuskegee Airmen during their military service.
    None of the pieces I read ever connect the two families, but they were cousins through the Kentucky origins. There is a LOT more to this story, especially centered around race and the prohibitions of "mixed" marriage. I stumbled across this site but thank you for rescuing the photos. Have you posted more of them? I live in Iowa City, Iowa.

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    1. Hello, selling a photo/ ephemera lot once belonging to your grandmother here : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nellie-Scott-Dillon-lot-Tuskegee-Booker-Washington-photo-George-Carver-Langston/123484453993?hash=item1cc03f3c69:g:8lcAAOSwiWZb6MLe:rk:1:pf:0 Okay, thought you should know.Thanks.

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  8. I am stunned that Vertner Tandy was a cousin of Father Bishop! I had no idea. I would love to have any of this documentation for the church record at St. Philip's! Thank you so much.

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  9. Hello Leslie,

    This amazing just came across your blog. I would love to know amd to see more of these pictures. I am the great neice of Achibald Carey Sr. His oldest sister is my mother's grandmother. Myself and my family would love to know about these lost pictures.

    Thanks/

    Lori Gaston

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  10. The Bishop Carey's are my dad's family. Can you connect me with the people who have the album?

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  11. Andrew Bishop was the brother of Shelton. He was an early black actor, with the first most popular black acting group The Lafayette Players and he acted in many of pioneer black film maker Oscar Micheaux films, one survives called Murder in Harlem. I researched him and found articles on him, he was considered one of the best actors and many said had he passed for white, he would’ve been a Clark Gable or Cary Grant. I talked to a few years back a granddaughter of Shelton Bishop, I believe, but it was a relative, and she said Andrew ended up an alcoholic. I been trying to research him more but it’s been hard since most who knew him of his family are dead. Seems this family was prestigious, clergymen, doctors, actors. Were there any photos of Andrew Bishop?

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  12. Clergy, artists, and physicians - quite a lineage! Thank you, Miss Leslie Ann for this post! I found your blog after googling Reverend Shelton Hale BISHOP; the internet never ceases to amaze.

    Rev. Shelton’s son, SHELTON HALE BISHOP JR. [1922-2010] married Mabel Hawes [1919-1991] around 1942. Mabel was an older sister of legendary Jazz pianist Hampton Hawes [1928-1977]. They were two of seven children born to Gertrude Holman [1892-1967] and Hampton Barnett Hawes Jr. [1888-1976], a prominent Los Angeles pastor of the Westminster Presbyterian Church from 1912-1958.

    Shelton Jr.’s and Mabel’s son Phillan Barnett BISHOP [1948-1991], another musician, composed scores for a string of horror films in the 1970s.

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  13. I was trying to find something about Eloise Carey Bishop, my English teacher at Harriet Beecher Stowe JHS 136 in Harlem back in the 1940's. She was the fantastic and wonderful teacher who taught us about Black poets and poetry alongside White ones. We read Countee Cullen's work along with John Keats'. If memory serves me, she was the wife of Father Bishop at St. Philip's Church on 133/134 St. between 7th and 8th Avenues in Harlem. I was one of four students for whom she set up an interview with the wife of James Weldon Johnson at the Theresa Hotel on 125 Street and 7th Avenue. We had tea in a lovely parlor up an impressive staircase on the second floor. We sat with our gloved hands and notepads with our prepared and carefully rehearsed questions, feeling awed and special. She coached ninth-graders in English to prepare us to take the test for Bronx High School of Science and Hunter College High School, which I attended. I shall always remember her with love and appreciation. As an Adjunct Professor of English, now in my 80's, I have used the training I received in her classroom in my own pedagogy to enrich the lives of my students. I don't know why she was on my mind all day today, but she was; so I decided to search for her. What a pleasant and wonderful surprise! Best wishes to all of you members of this family. Eloise Carey Bishop lives on!

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    1. What a nice commentary. My mother, Helen Howard and aunt, Matilda Erwin knew Father Bishop in the late 30s, 40s and 50s. Last correspondence Aunt Tillie aka Matilda had was his passing in early 60s?

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  14. Matilda Erwin was my Aunt. Her birth name was Rose Matilda Flemister. She married Joe Erwin. She passed as white. Please contact me at adc14@comcast.net.

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  15. Also, Archibald Carey, Jr ’s daughter married my cousin William Jones.

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