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.
Storm Cloud Woman and Edward Eugene Miller
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 Cloud Woman is older, and is with Edward Eugene Miller, who bought, traded and sold Indian baskets and sold them in his drug store on Front Street. Edward was born in 1847 in Old Mission and moved to “New Mission” (Omena) as a child. He learned to speak the Indian language and was a lifelong friend to Native Americans in the area.