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Show Monument erected to honor young pioneer President Gordon B. Hinckley, first counselor in the First Presidency Presiden-cy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will dedicate a monument to a Mormon pioneer woman who as a young girl lost both feet after walking from Iowa to the Salt Lake Valley. The life-size bronze monument to Ellen (Nellie) Pucell Unthank will be dedicated Aug. 3, during services at Cedar City's Randall Hall, just one block from the monument on the campus of Southern Utah University. The monument and the dedicatory services ser-vices are sponsored by the National Society, The Sons of Utah Pioneers. After the dedicatory services, the monument, sculpted by Jerry Anderson of Leeds, Utah, will be unveiled by Kenneth P. Rasmussen, national SUP president. Principal speaker at the ceremonies will be the Baroness Caroline Cox of London, England, a deputy speaker in the British Parliament's House of Lords. The heroine being honored, Nellie Pucell Unthank, arrived in the United States from her native England at age 9, with her parents and 14-year-old sister, Maggie. Nellie's parents, Margaret Perren Pucell and Samuel Pucell, had been among the first Latter-day Saints converted in 1837 by Heber C. Kimball and his six associates, first missionaries of the Church in Great Britain, 19 years before. Without sufficient means to acquire ac-quire an ox team and wagon, the Pucells, with other British im migrants, built handcarts in Iowa. With the Edward Martin Company of approximately 600 persons, the Pucells began the handcart trek from Iowa on July 27, 1856. All went comparatively well with the handcart company until they neared the mountains. Then early snows hit. The freezing temperatures and food shortages resulted in the deaths of many, including in-cluding Nellie's parents. Nellie's feet were frozen and after Mormon leader Brigham Young sent rescue parties to bring the handcart company to Salt Lake City, both of her legs were amputated am-putated just below the knee with a butcher's knife and a carpenter's saw-without benefit of anesthesia. Nellie and her sister traveled to Cedar City with other members of the handcart company. There, she later married William Unthank and, despite her handicap, was able to bear and raise six children. William Unthank 's income was limited, so Nellie took in washing and also knitted stockings, carded wool and crocheted table pieces for sale in order to help support the family. She died in Cedar City at the age of 68. Jerry Anderson, the sculptor of the monument which depicts Nellie as a 9-year-old beginning the handcart hand-cart trek in Iowa, has twice won "Best of Show" in sculpture at the prestigious Western Artists of America annual exhibition. His works can be found in many collections, collec-tions, from California to Washington, Washing-ton, D.C. |