Agriculture

This early photo is a Beebe Postcard image from 1915. Meet Storm Cloud Woman, or “Ah-ne-quet-qua”, a resident of Peshawbestown in the early 1900’s and a basketmaker. She sold her baskets at Edward Millers Drug Store in Traverse City. Strange combination, you might say. Drugs and baskets? They both had Omena connections. There is a story there. Not much is known about Ah-Ne-Quet-Qua because she had no English name and was not in the census and there is no death record. I imagine this shed being her workshop and filled with basketmaking fibers of all kinds. In this photo Storm… Read More »

1913 photo from the SC Wilcox Farm Was there any a time when there was no maple syrup for our pancakes? The Chippewa and Ottawas have a legend that begins with a god named “NenawBozhoo”. He saw that his peoples were becoming lazy as they drank the pure maple syrup from maple trees rather than hut and forage for food. He cast a spell on the maples that made their sap watery so it required processing before it could be consumed. While this may be just a legend, we do know early Native Americans gathered maple sap and put it… Read More »

Only a few photos remain of the sawmill which some of which are here thanks to Omena Historical Society. The definition of old-growth or primeval forest is one that “has attained great age without significant disturbance”. Do we have any old-growth forests in Omena? Actually yes, we do, according to Chris Verdery, our local forestry expert. There is a 300 year old White Ash tree, the oldest in Michigan, in Omena Woods that families have had their photos taken with for generations,  the children growing along with the tree. And there are several 300 year old Sugar Maples along the… Read More »

Dr David Goodale, MD, was brought to Traverse City in 1853 mainly to manage the large boarding house of Hannah and Lay, a large company needing housing for its employees. He soon realized he was needed as a physician, being the only doctor in residence in the village. Courtesy Grand Traverse Legends, by Robert E Wilson Sickness was unknown to most of us,” wrote Amalia Kropp in the Bohemian language used by the people of North Unity on the western side of Leelanau County in 1856. “There wasn’t any doctor here to begin with, but if anyone got sick, we… Read More »

If you wanted to get a large pie, say 3 feet in diameter, into a car for a trip to the President of the United States at his summer residence, how would you do it? If you were Frank Burkhart, Tom VanPelt’s Great Grandfather, and the car was, say, a 1926 Lincoln, you could just flip up the windshield and slide it in! And you could ask your son, Hugh, to drive it on the uncertain early roads of 1926 and deliver it to the President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, at his summer residence. Wallace Keep, who had… Read More »

Nels and Alvin Fredrickson planting potatoes by machine in the early 1920’s. Randa Fredrickson Collection, A History of Leelanau Township. Before cherries, there were potatoes. Children had a two week “vacation” from school in the fall to help dig them. They were loaded onto wagons and hauled by horses to warehouses near the docks in Omena, Sutton’s Bay and Northport, where long lines waited their turn to get unloaded. Potato buyers ran along these lines shouting their price offerings. Sometimes there was trouble. The Leelanau Tribune of September 17, 1875 reported the following, “Monday evening, Mr. E. P. Taylor drove… Read More »