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Show Meet John Tanner 21 seems to be in Elizabeth's own hand. born in 1803 and would have been eighty-one at the time of the reunion. This is an important historical piece and fur nishes some vivid pictures of her experience in the early days of dictated, but the balance Elizabeth was the church.' Louisa Maria Tanner Lyman wrote two letters to her hus spring of 1847 while he was with Brigham Young and the original pioneers on their way to search out a location for a set tlement in the Great Basin. It is remarkable that these letters were preserved under the circumstances, but certainly most fortunate, as band in the they reveal the part played by a woman in the trying period of the exodus to Utah. She also wrote other letters while in San Bernardino which have been preserved. S Myron, oldest child of Elizabeth Beswick and John Tanner, related the events of his life to a family gathering in Provo, on the seventieth anniversary of his birth. Dr. Joseph M. Tanner, Myron's compiled the information and in 1907 published the Biography Tanner in paperback. Born in 1826, he is not as well of Myron with acquainted early events as his brother Nathan, but by the time of the exodus in 1846 he was mature and his accounts are of great son, importance. 9 An article in the handwriting of Apostle Francis M. Lyman entitled, "Reminiscences in the History of John Tanner, the son of Joshua and Thankful (Tift) Tanner, born August 15, 1778 in Rhode Island," has recently been found. The information for the article which is seven pages in length came from Elizabeth Beswick, Sidney Tanner, Louisa Maria Lyman, Myron Tanner, Freeman E. Tanner, Joseph S. Tanner, and David Dan Tanner. The paper is not dated but it may well have been the source of Scraps of Biography published in 1883.10 Eliza Maria though Partridge Lyman, plural wife of Amasa M. Lyman, family, was so closely associated splendid journal is almost as valuable for our purpose not a member of the Tanner with it that her as if she were. Her account of the haste and confusion incident to the flight from Nauvoo, and the terrible spring and summer in the cros sing of Iowa to the Missouri River, must be rated high in comparison with other journals. She will be quoted often." There will be quotations in this volume from a large number of original letters and other items which will not be mentioned here, but which will be acknowledged in the proper places. But three |
