Susan Yewubdar Bell was born in Ethiopia, either at Magdala or Diddum (near Debra Tabor). Swiss missionary Theophilus Waldmeier recorded in his Autobiography that their marriage took place at Magdala on 4 December 1859. Susan was about fifteen years old at that time which would make her likely year of birth 1844/45. Susan is thought to have given birth to fourteen or fifteen children. Of her first seven children only two lived. Theophilus records that five sons died in Ethiopia.
Following her marriage, Susan Yewubdar, her husband and his colleagues moved to Gaffat (east of Debra Tabor). With the blessing of Emperor Tewodros II, they established a mission and remained several years there. Susan’s eldest daughter Rosa was born in 1863. Some of Rosa’s early years were spent in the company of Hagos, a lion cub given to her parents by Emperor Tewodros before his warmth toward them cooled and the missionaries were summoned to Debra Tabor.
During the months Susan Yewubdar spent in Debra Tabor, her fifth son died. The missionaries were put to work casting Tewodros’ famous canon Sebastopol and building the wagon that would transport it to the natural mountain fortress, Magdala, approximately 200 miles away. Theophilus records that the journey to Magdala took six months as roads had to be made to bear the artillery with which Tewodros hoped to repel the British force that had been sent against him under the leadership of Robert Napier.
Following Emperor Tewodros’ death in 1868, Susan Yewubdar, her husband and daughter left Ethiopia. With them were Susan’s sister, Mary Beletetch and her husband, Karl Saalmüller, who had come to Ethiopia as an artisan/lay missionary with Theophilus. The party first travelled to Egypt and then to Palestine before making their way to Lebanon where both families eventually settled in the mountain village of Brummana.
In the opening months of 1869, while still in Beirut, Susan Yewbudar gave birth to another son. She named him Theophilus for his father, who was visiting Europe at the time. Upon his return to Lebanon in May, Theophilus senior took up a position as Inspector of British Syrian Schools. This led to their move to Brummana where the Waldmeiers established a Quaker mission and community that provided health and education services, including Brummana High School.
In Brummana, Susan Yewubdar gave birth to her second daughter Augusta on 29 January 1870. In 1879, when Susan was about thirty-four and Augusta nine years old, mother and daughter sat for the French photographer Felix Bonfils who, with his wife Lydie and their son Adrien, ran the Beirut-based studio Maison Bonfils. The portrait, along with another of Susan alone, is contained in an album from the Fouad Debbas Collection which is now housed at the Sursock Museum in Beirut. Felix and his son Adrien would continue to photograph Susan’s family for decades to come, including her niece Marielie Saalmüller to whom Adrien Bonfils was married in 1897.
Thanks to the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme, the album containing these portraits has been digitised and is accessible online.
Susan Yewubdar Bell Waldmeier
Susan Yewubdar and Augusta Waldmeier
Susan Yewubdar’s appearance and expression communicate little of her extensive and at times traumatic life experience. While some further sadness was to follow, her future held greater peace and stability. Brummana remained her home until she died in 1893.
Once grown, Augusta moved to her father’s homeland, Switzerland, where she raised a family and lived until her death in 1949.
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