Bommeli~Bonelli~Hamblin~Lee~Udall 

🌳 Exploring Roots and Branches of the great big tree.🌳

 

Louisa Bonelli Hamblin

1843 ~ 1931

While catching up with the morning’s social media I saw a post from Pipe Spring National Monument on Facebook.  The post included three portraits including Stewart Lee Udall,  Luella Stewart, and Jacob Hamblin. Upon further reading I learned that Stewart Udall’s grandmother was Luella Stewart,  the first telegrapher at Pipe Spring, and his great-grandfather was Jacob Hamblin, a well known Mormon pioneer and diplomat to various native tribes of the southwest and Great Basin. 

I took a look at Family Search to see how this branch was fastened to the tree and discovered Stewart Udall is my 3rd cousin 2x’s removed. He served three terms as Arizona congressman, and then served as Secretary of the Interior from 1961 to 1969, under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. 

Wiki says, “Udall also helped spark a cultural renaissance in America by setting in motion initiatives that led to the Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the revived Ford's Theatre. Upon Udall's recommendation President Kennedy asked former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Frost to read an original poem at his inauguration, establishing a tradition for that occasion.

“A pioneer of the environmental movement, Udall warned of a conservation crisis in the 1960s with his best-selling book on environmental attitudes in the United States, The Quiet Crisis (1963).[12] In the book, he wrote about the dangers of pollution, overuse of natural resources, and dwindling open spaces. Along with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, The Quiet Crisis is credited with creating a consciousness in the country that led to the environmental movement. Udall was a staunch supporter of Rachel Carson and her work. Stewart Udall once stated, "Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact, plans to protect Man."

🌀 Stewart’s great-grandmother was Louisa Bonelli, wife of Jacob Hamblin.  Louisa is my 4th grand aunt.  It was on a trip to Kanab, UT, that Aunt Louisa came into view as we toured the DUP museum there. The lovely ladies at the museum knew all about the history of Kane county and gave us a delightful tour. In one glass case was a dress and shawl once owned by Louisa Bonelli Hamblin.  How I delighted in seeing those antiquities.

Louisa Bonelli Hamblin emigrated from Switzerland in 1857, aboard the ship George Washington, along with her two sisters, a brother, and her father Hans George Bommeli. Some of the family anglicized the name to Bonelli at their conversion to Mormonism in 1854. This was a family of weavers for many generations. My 3rd Great grandmother Maria, or Mary as she was later called, stayed behind for two years, and emigrated in 1859 landing in NY where she stayed to earn money before heading to Zion.  Her story is pretty amazing, and I’ll have to include it in a subsequent post. 

Louisa Bonelli and family set off on May 2, 1860, across the plains from Counsel Bluffs in the George E. Cannon Wagon Company. By July they had traveled 326 miles from Council Bluffs and on July 24th 1860 they reached Fort Laramie, Wyoming. They crossed the Green River, went through Morgan, through Echo Canyon and on until they reached Salt Lake in October, making this a six month trek to a wild and unfamiliar country.  I imagine the great Wasatch range that greeted the Swiss emigrants, in October, was a dear surprise. 

It was about 1862 when Hans George and Maria, and Louisa Bonelli and her husband Jacob Hamblin, loaded up their wagons and headed south to Dixie.

Inez Louise Hamblin was born to Louisa Bonelli and Jacob Hamblin, in Kanab, Kane, Utah in 1871. 

 Inez Hamblin married John David Lee, the son of John Doyle Lee, the martyr of Mountain Meadows massacre. 

 Their daughter, Louise Lee, married Levi Stewart Udall.  

 Louise Lee and Levi Stewart Udall are the parents of Stewart Lee Udall, and Morris King Udall.  🌀