John Tanner and his family

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120 John Tanner and H is Family Eliza makes this sound like it was "Brother Lyman" who was responsible for getting John Tanner and family, together with Maria Lyman, caught up with the camp. Of course "Brother Lyman" is the apostle and has to be given proper credit, but it was John Tanner who had theteams, drivers, supplies, and all necessary things to make his family as comfortable as possible, and he had been looking after his married daughter, Maria Lyman, and her four children, all under ten years of age. The provident children, apostle was most fortunate in having a father-in-law so who willingly looked after his married daughter and grand­ as well as occasionally spreading his wings over the other wives of the apostle. Amasa Lyman may have taken back an extra help John Tanner through the worst mudholes, but John was quite capable of taking care of himself and quite a few others. team to Family tradition indicates that John Tanner and his sons Sidney and John Joshua were made bishops sometime during the journey across Iowa. The author has been puzzled about this as there is no indication that they were the heads of wards in the usual sense. The names of all bishops of the wards in Winter Quarters are readily available, and none of the Tanners are included, though they resided there from 1846 to 1848. Nor were any of the Tanners bishops in South Cottonwood where they resided when they came to the valley." The author's M. Tanner, who was the son of stated that there was a period in the early Sidney Tanner, of the church when there were two presiding officers in a ward. history The president of the ward held the Melchizedek priesthood and looked after the spiritual affairs, while the other bishop, acting as an Aaronic priesthood bearer, looked after the temporal affairs, par­ father, Henry once ticularly the poor. Earl E. Olson, assistant managing director, History Department of the Church, says there seems to have been something of this sort perpetuated for a time in some of the Utah wards. The author has not delved into this deeply enough to bear this out, but he has solved the riddle of John Tanner and his sons becoming "bishops" in Iowa. President Young had said that "if a man was willing that his property should be disposed of in any way the Lord directed, the Lord was willing he should be a bishop.'?" With the departure of the Mormon Battalion for California a