By Lisa Schnebly Heidinger
[Note: The author is the great-granddaughter of Sedona Schnebly, for whom Sedona is named. This article reflects her thoughts about her ancestor.]
Larry Schnebly, Sedona Schnebly’s grandson, my father, often said, “Looking at the past is like looking at a foreign country; there’s so much we can’t understand.” Growing up hearing about my great-grandmother’s pioneering adventures filled me with awe and envy. What a difference she made in what is now Arizona. However, as my friend Jodi Applegate (former host of Good Morning Arizona) points out, “The truly important questions can only be answered, ‘Well, yes and no.’” Sedona was amazing. And she wasn’t.
From a prosperous family in Gorin, Missouri, Sedona married Theodore Carlton (T.C.) Schnebly on her 20th birthday in 1897 and was promptly written out of her parents’ will for marrying a Presbyterian after growing up Methodist. That likely contributed to T.C. selling his share of Schnebly Hardware to his two co-owner brothers and following a third brother, Dorsey Ellsworth (D.E.), out west. D.E. was a teacher and rambler whose letters highlight Oak Creek Canyon.
As a girl, I pictured a trek by covered wagon, but Sedona brought her two children, Ellsworth (Tad), age 3, and Pearl, age 1, by train. T.C. had arrived earlier, bringing their possessions in an emigrant train car, including seedlings to start an orchard that quickly produced fruit.
Everything was left on the train platform in Jerome. T.C. made multiple wagon trips back and forth, transporting all their possessions to the banks of Oak Creek, where he’d purchased 80 acres from Frank Owenby, a homesteader for whom the Owenby Ditch is named. This ditch is located on nine properties including the Los Abrigados resort.
When Sedona arrived, five families had homes across what we think of as Sedona; others out in what was Grasshopper Flats, now West Sedona, and Big Park, now Village of Oak Creek.
She raised her children in a home that served as a bed and breakfast for visitors. T.C. built Schnebly Hill Road, a post office (named for his wife) and many friends on his trips to and from Flagstaff selling produce and hauling back goods for neighbors.
Today, I wonder if she was remarkable or simply a typical woman of her time? Raised in genteel surroundings, it took “bristles” to live in the West with no gaslights, physicians’ offices, hotels or paved streets. Losing daughter, Pearl, at age 5 must have been devastating, as she and Tad watched the tiny rider being thrown from her pony and dragged home. But many mothers lost children in those times.
What I find most laudable is that she remained generous, gracious and giving her entire life. From her deathbed, she dispatched T.C. to take a get-well card to Ruth Jordan’s ailing father-in-law.
Sedona requested no flowers for her own funeral, “…because they are of the earth. Get a bell, because music is of the heavens.” To this day, the Wayside Chapel bell her son Hank found as a Union Pacific worker in Denver hangs in the belfry. It wasn’t the act of a special pioneer; it was the act of a thinking and appreciative woman, and that’s what I admire.
[Lisa Schnebly Heidinger will discuss her great-grandmother at the 21st annual Western History Symposium on Saturday, August 3, at 10:30 AM. The day-long free event is conducted by the Prescott Corral of Westerners, hosted by the Phippen Museum. Visit www.prescottcorral.org for a speaker’s list.]
Correction: The article William Randolph Hearst vs. The City of Prescott (6/30/2024) has an incorrect caption: “Hotel Burke - now Hotel St. Michael.” This image was actually the "Hotel Burke" that burned down in the July 14, 1900 fire.