Dimond Malanjo Loosli (1876-1947)

Portrait from the Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1913.

  Possessing an exotic-sounding name, Dimond Malanjo Loosli was born of Swiss descent in Utah and after entering young adulthood removed to Idaho with his family. A lifelong member of the Mormon church, Loosli's residency in Idaho saw him attain prominence in both church affairs and politics in the Fremont County area, being a choir leader, bishop's counselor, county assessor, and member of both houses of the Idaho legislature.

  One of nine children born to  Ulrich (1830-1918) and Elizabeth Eggimann (Bauman) Loosli (1842-1902), Dimond Malanjo Loosli was born in Clarkston, Utah on October 20, 1876. Natives of Switzerland, Ulrich and Elizabeth Loosli were members of the Mormon church and the former had first settled in the United States in 1860. Following his marriage to Elizabeth in 1869, the Loosli's resided in Clarkston, and in addition to Dimond Malanjo, Ulrich Loosli bestowed unusual names on four more of his children, including Troudgott Landlo (born 1869), Anfanial (died in infancy in 1870), Boundy Endore (born 1872) and Hyrum Ultra (born 1885).

   Loosli's early education saw him attend school in Trenton, Utah and he later studied at the Bannock Stake Academy in Rexburg, Idaho. In 1892 he removed with his family to Marysville, Idaho, and following a brief flirtation with a teaching career, married to Hattie Salisbury in Utah on November 11, 1898. The couple's near fifty-year union saw the births of nine children, Dimond Herschel (1899-1962), Stanley (1901-1987), Anna Lisle (1903-1981), Clayton Girr (1905-1976), Adrienne (1907-1997), Leo Arden (1909-1938), Berlin Ramsden (1911-1933), Alden Revere (1913-1988) and Donald Lamar (1915-2010).

  In the years following his marriage, Loosli established a farm and homesteaded 160 acres of land, where he raised grain and planted crops. Sources relate that he enjoyed tinkering in his workshop on his family's farm and had a love for music, playing bass horn in the Marysville band. In addition to this, Loosli also was a director in the Marysville ward choir. As a leader in the local Mormon church, Loosli taught a Gospel Doctrine class, held the post of ward clerk for the Marysville ward for nearly two decades, and was a high councilor in the Yellowstone stake for twelve years. 

  

Dimond and Hattie Loosli, from Marysville, Idaho: People and Happenings.

  Dimond M. Loosli made his first run for public office in Idaho in 1904, winning election as a justice of the peace for Marysville. In November 1930 he was elected as one of two Fremont county representatives to the Idaho state house of representatives and served during the 1931-33 session. Loosli would win a seat in the state senate in the 1934 election year, and during his term served on a special legislative committee that visited St. Alphonsus Hospital. While still an incumbent senator, Loosli was named to the Fremont County Agricultural Planning Board in February 1936, where he was a member of the peas commodity committee.

  After leaving office Loosli continued prominence in his native county of Fremont, serving as vice president of the Fremont County farm loan association, was a director of the Brady Canal, and remained dedicated to church work, traveling with his wife Hattie on a mission to California from 1939-40. In 1942 Loosli retired from farming in Marysville and removed with his wife to Ashton, Idaho, where he died on April 6, 1947, aged 70. Hattie Loosli survived her husband by nearly twenty years, dying two days short of her 90th birthday in 1966. Both were interred at the Pineview Cemetery in Ashton. 

Loosli in old age, from the "Ashton Family Histories", 2006.