Joseph Marion "Jay" Tanner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Marion_Tanner

Joseph Marion ("Jay") Tanner (March 26, 1859 – August 19, 1927) was an American educator and a leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). He has been described as "one of the most gifted teachers and writers in the [LDS] Church in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries".

Tanner was born in Payson, Utah Territory in a Latter-day Saint family. He attended Brigham Young Academy in Provo, Utah before departing the United States as a missionary for the LDS Church. From 1884 to 1887, he preached Mormonism in Europe and the Middle East. Along with Jacob Spori, he was the first LDS Church missionary to preach in Turkey—where they baptized Mischa Markow—and was the organizer of the first branch of the LDS Church in Palestine.

From 1887 to 1891, Tanner was the principal of Brigham Young College in Logan, Utah. In 1891, he became the leader of the first group of Latter-day Saints to enroll at Harvard University. Tanner studied law at Harvard Law School until 1894, when his ill health prompted him to return to Utah.

From 1896 to 1900, Tanner was president of Utah Agricultural College, which is today Utah State University.

In 1901, Tanner succeeded Karl G. Maeser and became the second Commissioner of Church Education for the LDS Church. At the same time, he became the second assistant to Lorenzo Snow in the general superintendency of the church's Deseret Sunday School Union. When Snow died and was succeeded by Joseph F. Smith, Tanner became Smith's second assistant in the church's Sunday School.

Tanner retired in 1906 and emigrated to Alberta, Canada, where he farmed in the Cardston area.

From 1906 to 1921 Tanner wrote extensively for the Improvement Era, an official periodical of the LDS Church. He wrote a number of books, including manuals for the church's Sunday School and a biography of John R. Murdock.

Tanner was a practitioner of plural marriage and had five wives. His second wife, Annie Clark Tanner, accused him of abandoning her and their children.

Tanner died in Lethbridge, Alberta and was buried in Salt Lake City, Utah.

• Residence: Provo, Utah, Utah, United States
• Residence: Provo, Utah, Utah, United States - 1860
• Residence: Provo, Utah, Utah, United States - 1880
• Residence: Medicine Hat Sub-Districts 1-11, Alberta, Canada - 1911
• Residence: Ogden Ward 4, Weber, Utah, United States - 1920
• Residence: Provo, Utah, Utah, United States - 1860
• Residence: Provo, Utah, Utah, United States - 1 June 1870
• Residence: Provo, Utah, Utah, United States - 1880
• Residence: Medicine Hat Sub-Districts 1-11, Alberta, Canada - 1911
• Residence: Alberta, Canada - 1916
• Residence: Ogden Ward 4, Weber, Utah, United States - 1920
  • Reference: FamilySearch Genealogy - SmartCopy: Aug 1 2021, 3:28:03 UTC

Son of Myron Tanner and Mary Jane Mount

Married Josephine Snow, 15 Nov 1878, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

Married Jennie Harrington, 15 Nov 1878, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

Married Annie Vilate Clark, 27 Dec 1883, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

Married Carrie Peterson

Married Lydia Matilda Holmgren

History - Tanner, Joseph Marion, second assistant general superintendent of Latter-day Saint Sunday schools, was born March 26, 1859, in Payson, Utah county, Utah. He is the second but oldest living son of Myron Tanner and Mary Jane Mount, who when their son was about three years of age moved to Provo, where he received his earliest education in the public schools. From his fourteenth to his seventeenth year he was an employee of the Provo Woolen Mills. He worked during the day in the factory and attended a night school organized at the Brigham Young Academy, under Dr. Karl G. Maeser. The class originally consisted of some twenty-six factory hands who gradually lost their interest in the studies, and he finally became the only student of the class which continued during the entire school year. It was during these night classes, at which he was the only student, that a sympathetic friendship sprang up between the boy and Dr. Karl G. Maeser—a friendship that became increasingly intimate during Dr. Maeser's life. At the age of seventeen he entered the academy as a regular student and was a member of its first graduating class in the year 1878, thus becoming one of the first teachers who had graduated from the institution. He remained at the academy as a teacher of various subjects, especially of mathematics, from his nineteenth to his twenty-fifth year. In 1879 he was engaged in engineering work in the construction of the Denver and Rio Grande railroad, and in 1882 was appointed city surveyor of Provo. In 1884 he left for a mission to Germany. In view of his profession as teacher he traveled extensively in America and Europe on his way to the missionary field, and was finally assigned to the Berlin conference. In the fall of 1885 he was transferred to Turkey for the purpose of opening a mission in the Sultan's dominion. During the spring of 1886 he visited the principal Oriental countries bordering on the Mediterranean, and especially the Holy Land, where an opportunity was discovered to open a mission among the German colonists who were colonizing Palestine under the idea that the chief feature of the gospel in these last days was that of gathering. A number of these Germans subsequently accepted the gospel and emigrated to America. After 3 1/2 years of missionary labor and travel in most of the countries of Europe and in the Holy Land, he returned home, reaching Utah in December, 1887. Owing to the ill health of Dr. Karl G. Maeser at that time, he took the latter's work in the Brigham Young Academy for the remaining part of the year. In the summer of 1888 he was elected president of the Brigham Young College at Logan, and the same year was appointed a member of the Church Board of Examiners, and the Church Board of Education at the same time conferred upon him the doctor's degree. After three years' presidency of the Brigham Young College, he resigned his position to take up a course of study in the East, and passed three years at Harvard University, chiefly in the study of law. On his return from Harvard he entered the practice of law in Salt Lake City, where in 1896 he became the first Supreme Court reporter under the new State government. While occupying that office he edited the first five volumes of the Utah State Reports. He was the same year elected president of the Agricultural College, at Logan, a position which he held for four years. Upon resigning his position as college president in 1900, he again entered the practice of law in Salt Lake City and became a member of the law firm of Ferguson, Cannon & Tanner. After a practice covering a period of ten months, in 1901, he was appointed deputy superintendent of State schools and later in the same year received the appointment of general superintendent of Church schools, to succeed Dr. Karl G. Maeser, who had recently died. Dr. Tanner, who had been a member of the Deseret Sunday School Union Board since 1896, was chosen second assistant superintendent of Sunday schools in 1901, and about the same time was appointed second assistant superintendent of religion classes. For more than twenty years Dr. Tanner has been a constant contributor to Church magazines, and at present is assistant associate editor of the "Juvenile Instructor," and edits "Current Topics" in the "Improvement Era." His studies and teaching during the past twenty-five years have covered a wide range, including, as they do, mathematics, languages, history, and law. His travels in Europe, Asia and Africa have extended to most of the historical fields of those continents and have been undertaken in pursuance of his interest in historical research. These accumulated experiences in educational institutions and in travel are particularly helpful to his work in the school and in the editor's chair.

LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, Andrew Jenson, Vol. 1, p. 709* Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Aug 1 2021, 3:44:34 UTC