John Tanner and his family

Page 388

John Tanner and His 380 Family Nathan Tanner "Reminiscences" [A taLk given at the John Tanner Family Reunion, in Payson, Utah, December 25,26, 27, 1884] of satisfaction to me to be with my friends and relatives We race. we represent the father and mother of our today. and middle the age, the infant, the youth, have present four generations the old men and women blossoming for the grave. from descent, with a cross from We have descended in It is a source Here here - English part of Scotland, and that of Miles Standish, one of the first settlers in America, and who endured the hardships of settling our Country in early times. Another branch of the sprang from a gigantic race, the the Stuart Family family Beswick, whose grandfather was considered reason to equal to four common men proud. We are of a hardy be All this gives us good and used to hardships. Our father commenced poor, after settling the affairs of a widowed family, as he was the oldest. He commenced accumulated around him the com­ poor, and by hard work and economy, forts of life. He had a delightful home on the west side of Lake George, one of the finest sheets of water in the world. Here he carried on farming stockraising and dairying on different farms; lumbering in all in strength. race extensively; as he owned sawmills and planing mills, and owned some 2,200 acres of land with houses and barnes to accommodate a number of families; and orcharding in great abundance. He also kept a hotel of its branches, some considerable note. All these various branches of business made work for 'his family and all he could hire. In those days women turned the wheel by hand or foot that spun our were a hard yarn and made our cloth. In this we were not behind. We means was willed to us, of our None hard handed and family. working 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 otherwise, it would prove a curse. My father, through a hardship and exposure, had contracted a disease that broke out in sores on his leg, similar to a fever sore. This had troubled him for years, and finally became so bad that he was deprived of the use of it. For some five months he had not borne his weight on it, and for months had not put it to the floor. He had a council of Doctors to examine it, and they decided that the leg could not be saved, and must be or it would prove his death. To this he could not consent, but amputated said that he and his leg would go together. At this he set out making He heard that a strange arrangements to settle up his business affairs. were going about turning the world who called Mormons, upside people down, were going to preach about seven miles from where he lived. Fear­ that get away with some of the Baptist brethren, of whom ing they might he had the watch-care. he had his horse and cart made ready, and he