John Tanner and his family

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24 John Tanner and His Family foot that spun our behind. We were a hard working and a hard handed family. None of our means was willed to us, but earned by hard work and economy. My father used to say he enjoyed accumulating property around him, and if it could be spent wisely, it would prove a blessing. If spent other­ wise it would prove a curse." In those days women turned the wheel yarn and made our cloth. In this we by hand were or not example of competitive discussions carried of families, the following is reproduced. large pions As an As to the on by cham­ Largest Family I noticed in your issue of August 5, 1920, that Carlos B. Sessions makes a statement claiming to belong to Utah's largest family. His father's family of 57 children was indeed one of the largest in the state, but there were at least three other men who had larger families Perrigrine Sessions: President Heber C. Kimball, Christopher Layton, and John W. Hess each had over 60 children. So if Mr. Sessions was referring to children when speaking of belonging to the largest family, he was evidently mistaken. If he was thinking of than descendants it is hard to arrive at a definite conclusion as to which man has the most descendants as not all families have taken the time and means to gather a record of all the members of the family. Some members have, however, and so far as I have been able to ascertain, the Tanner family, descendants from John Tanner who joined the church in 1831 [September 17, 1832] has the largest number of descendants of any man who lived in the state. compilation under the direction of M. J. [Maurice] Tanner, president of the Tanner Family Association, which will be published in book form and will reveal the fact that John Tanner's posterity number between four and five thousand souls. A record is in progress of [Taken from "Journal History," August 10, 1920. The article is by Earl Pingree Tanner, MaGrath, Alberta, Canada. It was printed in the Deseret News, August 10, 1920].23 Chapter lScraps of Biography, John One-Notes Tanner Family. 2Details of this event are narrated in the chapter "Another Try for a home." 3The author expects to relate events in an objective manner and will endeavor to point out inconsistencies.