As our current President wants to put his signature on U.S. currency as lesser and lesser people use it, I was surprised to see the late Wilma Mankiller on the backside of the quarter I got back from a transaction at the Reasor’s Supermarket in Tahlequah on Monday, April 6.
But that’s as common as ordering a beer in the Boston area and getting a Samuel Adams.
Mankiller was and still is the only woman Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She passed away on April 6, 2010 at the age of 64 from pancreatic cancer. Prior to her death, she and my mother, may they both rest in peace, met at a Cherokee Red Clay function. My mom said she had brought some extra chairs and someone asked to borrow one which Mankiller, who was ill, used. If I remember correctly, it was less than a year before Mankiller passed.
Mankiller served as Principal Chief from 1985 to 1995. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 from President Bill Clinton.
These quarters were minted in 2022 and one of my mom’s hobbies was collecting quarters from various states. Yet, we never found any of these after she passed in late December 2024.
Zane Says 