| OCR Text |
Show John Tanner and His 270 Family He was first dropped from in 1870.23 This was excommunicated the Quorum in 1867 and then Some of the wives himself. to as great a shock to his family as Amasa's with do biographer refused to have anything more to him; rejection of the atonement of Christ. 22 put it bluntly, "When Amasa left the Church, the Partridge women She spoke of him as left Amasa.'?' Eliza was particularly to that when he condition his contrasted "Mr. Lyman" and apostate 25 his power. of at the church and with the was in height bitter. harmony But gentle, constant Maria, who had known him longest and loved him best, did not tum her back on the erring Amasa. Unlike the other wives who had married a principle, Maria had married a man and she proposed to stick with him as she had convenanted, for better or for worse. There had been many times when she wondered if Amasa loved the church and his work more than he loved her, but regardless of that it was Amasa whom Maria loved He had needed her many times in the past when the closing in and he felt discouraged, but he needed her in the present crisis when his main enemy seemed to be above all else. was enemy still more himself. She did not forsake him. Amasa died a disappointed and broken man, estranged not given most of his life but from only from the chruch to which he had many of his own kin." Some said he was not well; others were less word in the Mormon hateful charitable. "Apostate" is and was a "All-wise Judge" who the church. The author will leave judgment to makes no mistakes. The constant and even-tempered Maria lived twenty-eight years a widow. She was not the gushing, demonstrative mother and grand mother some enjoy, but she was the consistent, dependable kind who radiate strength. And as the brilliant but less stable Amasa had her children and leaned on her in times past, so her family this from borrowed strong and stable grandchildren strength - - daughter of John Tanner. Lyman accompanied her on sister Matilda Randall, aging trip whom she had not seen for fifty years. Matilda, who was born in 1804, was the only other daughter of John Tanner who lived to maturity; she was eighty-three years of age at the time and lived only one more year. Some remarks made at the funeral of Maria Lyman should be included in this short biography: In 1887 her a to son Francis Marion Kirtland, Ohio, to visit her 27 |
