John Tanner and his family

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What Price Mormonism! In addition to assuring Amasa's salvation, 157 this also guaranteed that Amasa, who under the circumstances could not make a living for one wife, would never be able to provide adequately for any of his families. Also his time would be spread so thin among his numerous wives and children, he would be almost a stranger to them all. Maria did not leave us a journal how candid she would have been. and if she had it is not known cross was hard to But that her bear is shown from a letter in which she said, "The reason I have not written before is because I have nothing good to write.":" Maria wasted little time on self-pity, and she found church much more rewarding and exciting than many of life in the the faith. So in love was she with her overburdened her sisters in she husband that might have answered as did another plural wife when in Utah people were feeling sorry for her because she had to But make her "But plucky living, "Yes, it's true that I make the living," she said, living worthwhile." was a dynamic and attractive person and had there been own Ole, he makes the Amasa eight of him and a little less church work to do, he would have been Even her an exciting husband for most any Latter-day Saint maid. Maria's love Mormon in this interest one-eighth dashing apostle kept share of Amasa have traded her and she would not burning brightly, for complete ownership of anyone else. Sidney, the oldest of the Tanner children to come West, paid the highest price in human life of any member of the family. At Richardson Point, Iowa, not far out of Nauvoo, J ames Monroe, a toddler twenty months old, died. At Winter Quarters his wife Louisa Conlee, together with an infant, Mason Lyman, died. And a fourth member of the family, Sidney C., a vivacious lad of six, died July 26, 1848, on the Platte River, adding still more to his sorrow. A wife and three children were a high price to pay for the bitter journey from Nauvoo to Salt Lake. But Sidney had additional anguish as revealed in a recently discovered letter. had married Louisa Conlee in 1830. Her folks did not follow the Tanners into the Mormon church. On the contrary, they As seem to have been strongly opposed to the unpopular religion. to then from Bolton to Kirtland, moved his Sidney Sidney growing family Missouri and Iowa, and finally departed for the unknown West, the Conlees, who had watched with growing concern the various moves, wrote a sharply worded letter expressing their bitter disapproval.