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Show John Tanner and His 312 information would have given inquiry, they or Family complete biography. present author is still a more the After extensive research and less than satified with the material he has to work with. the third of the children of Elizabeth Beswick and John Tanner. He was born into a prosperous home where family members were accustomed to most of the things avail able, but measured by present standards their life was not one Freeman Everton of and luxury was ease. He arrived into the world three months before the organization of the Mormon church which he would spend the rest of his life serving. He was two years old when his folks joined the Latter-day Saints, four when they moved to Kirtland, Ohio, and eight when they moved to Far West, Missouri. During the six years they spent in Montrose, Iowa, Freeman changing from a boy to a young man; he was sixteen when the family left Montrose and headed West, and eighteen when they was arrived in Utah. eighteen years, the only ones he would re a people who were wanderers, moving from member, a place to place seeking permanent home but unable to remain long at anyone place because their enemies would not let them. Fourteen of these were spent with the last years at Montrose it is certain he was working on the farm, for none of John's children grew up in idleness, but there in no mention of him in the contemporary journals. It is likely that he spent some time in the schools of Nauvoo betwen 1840 and During 1846, and this may have been his only formal schooling, unless per haps some first grade work in Kirtland. Any schooling he had left much to be desired as a letter he wrote will show.' lad of sixteen he would have been of considerable help distressing trek across Iowa in 1846, but his presence during has to be assumed as his name is not mentioned. The nearly two his years he was at Winter Quarters, 1846-48, was spent assisting father in herding the cattle of the camp and tending crops to be used for the final trip to the valley. A biography of Freeman, writ As a the ten by his to Utah in Beswick," indicates that the family intended to travel 1847, but they were delayed by a fire which has been son places. The author is doubtful of valley in 1847 as no mention of such the contemporary journals. mentioned in others to travel to the been found in any intention intent has an |
