OVPA Blog

Stone Entrance to cave and home of Mary and Big Joe of Ahgosatown. Photo courtesy of Annette Deible and Alice Littlefield History is slippery. Take Mary Big Joe for instance. Mary was an Indian woman who lived on the north side of Ahgosatown about a mile north of Omena. She lived in a cave dug into the hillside with a stone entrance she built herself. Mary and Big Joe, came from the Indian settlement at Onumunese near today’s Gill’s Pier in the early ’30’s. They lived in Ahgosatown during its later years, according to Elizabeth Craker Armstrong, a local historian…. Read More »

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 »

Members of Company K, Michigan Sharpshooters, rest under a tree in 1864. – Photos courtesy Michigan Radio.org A little bouquet of flowers appeared every spring on the grave of an Indian boy, Thomas Miller, who had been killed in the Civil War. Thomas had enlisted as a young boy with the other Indians of our area into Company K, the Michigan Sharpshooters as they were called. They had tried to muster at the beginning of the Civil War but were denied. By 1863, with the Union forces not doing well, the Army reversed their decision and welcomed Indians into their service…. Read More »

This envelope was postmarked the day after the stamps became valid. As soon as the mail arrived and was sorted, Dr Goodale put on his big overcoat with large pockets on either side. He put the mail to be delivered into the pocket on one side of his coat. As he went out delivering mail to the businesses and residents of the village, he put the letters to be mailed out in the other pocket. In 1853 the mail came from Manistee to Traverse City once a week from “outside”, as the world beyond the horizon of Traverse City was… Read More »

  Outdoor Movies in Omena? What a great idea! But it was not just for the fun of it that the Kimmerly’s and John Putnam decided to try outdoor movies one summer in Omena. Bea and Myles Kimmerly took over Anderson’s store in 1947 and for the next eleven years they lived over the store and worked hard, carrying a little bit of everything, from potatoes to kerosene, catering to everyone from resorters, and cottagers, to migrant workers who came to town to harvest cherries and apples. It was a short season that could “make or break” the store. But… Read More »

  Up the rickety steps we went, with just enough room to squeeze by. A single dim lightbulb lit our way as we avoided the cobwebs. Once we got to the top of the stairs, light from the two end windows, one bare lightbulb, and a string of Christmas lights showed us what was ahead for us. Jim Promo and Lynn Sutton accompanied by a postal clerk, rolled up their sleeves and got to work. This was the attic of the Omena Post Office, this is what is behind that upstairs window we have been wondering about. We needed to… Read More »

  What did the family do for fun growing up at Villa Marquette? There were eventually ten children surrounded by Jesuit priests and academics. But this interesting family found ways to have fun that were enjoyed by all. One thing they did was raise pet crows every year. The boys and Chester would “steal a one from a nest and raise it from a baby. As soon as it was able to fend for itself we would let it go and they always stuck around all summer,” Mary Hallett Stanton told me. “They all learned to say hello, and all… Read More »

The children in the photo are, left to right: Bill , Hartford, Roddie, Chet, Cyril, Ed, their dad (Chester) and mom, Fred, Margie, Dorothy, and Bub. Mary wasn’t born when this picture was taken she is shown in circle to the left of the photograph. “It took me a couple of moments to remember to breath, and when I did, it was more of a whistle than a breath.” said a Jesuit priest upon his first visit to Villa Marquette seeing the chapel for the first time. The chapel was built in 1941 by John Chester Hallett, (“Chester”), Villa Marquette’s… Read More »

Imagine for a moment you are three year old Margie Hallett in 1942. Imagine you had made the long trip from Detroit with your five brothers and sisters crammed into an old car with your parents. You finally arrive to find when you arrived at the Villa Marquette where your father was to be the new caretaker, that things were not as you had expected. It is the middle of the night you are feeling very tired and cranky, and the cottage you were to call home for the rest of your childhood had at that point no indoor plumbing… Read More »