WALLACE OVE TANNERJune 21, 2008
GIVEN BY JESSIE TANNER SMITH
Our dad had many fond memories growing up in St. Johns, Arizona. To him there was no place like home. Before his mom and dad had their own home they lived with his maternal grandparents, Margaret Jarvis and Henry Christian Overson. He had memories of warm summer nights singing songs while sitting before a bonfire with other kids in the neighborhood and his Grandma calling him to bed. His mother and grandmother baked huge loaves of bread, made cottage cheese and butter and delicious preserves, and there was the sweet smell of spice cake in the pantry. During cold nights he crawled into bed between icy cold sheets in an unheated upstairs bedroom and his Grandma came up with warm flat irons wrapped in flannel to warm her boys. He spent many hours with his Uncle Peter (who was close in age) and they explored every nook and cranny of the two story, red brick, family home and entertained all of the kids in the neighborhood with plays. Wallace Ove Tanner was born at the home of his Overson Grandparents on August 12, 1924. He was the son of LeRoy Parkinson and Eva Margaret Overson Tanner. His father was a construction engineer and had jobs all over the state. His mother was employed at the Whiting Brothers cash store as a bookkeeper.
When he was 4 years old his family moved into a house that they had built on the hill just south of the courthouse. On the 13th day of April in 1929 dad and a friend Merlyn Whiting were out with some of his Grandma Overson’s photographic plates (grandma was the town photographer) and they were looking through them at an eclipse of the sun his father drove up and said, “You have a baby brother”. When his brother Lee Henry was born Dad remembered that as being a very exciting time.
Dad’s mother was a wonderful teacher and he was a very good student. By the time he started the first grade he had read all the textbooks used through the first eight grades of the St. Johns school. In elementary school he skipped several grades and so he was usually younger than most of the other students in his classes. Dad said that his parents instilled in him a desire to learn and to excel.
When he was eight his mother died of complications from diabetes and he went to live with his Grandma and Grandpa Overson who at that time were living in Mesa and working in the temple.
During this time Dad was able to do hundreds of baptisms for the dead. Over the years he attended schools in Mesa, Joseph City and later moved about with his father who was employed in Douglas and Kingman – and there he briefly attended high school. In 1941 he graduated from the St. Johns High School, where he was active in musical productions and he was Editor of the Yearbook. He was also unbeaten as a track competitor and won the northern Arizona tennis championship.
When dad was 16 years old and a senior in high school he had a life changing experience. Family members have heard dad tell this story but I felt that it was such a part of dad’s life that I would tell the story one more time for him. One summer day Dad and a friend named Roland Jones took their horses and a picnic and went about 12 miles away from St. Johns to visit a reservoir where the water went over the overflow. Riding back to St. Johns they rode to a hill in a small town called Salough. This hill had a 30-foot deep hole that was about 60 or 70 feet across.
Dad and Roland thought the hole might have a cave that went down into the river and decided they would go down in it. They took their lassos off their saddles and tied them on a cedar tree and both slid down into the hole. It was a cloudy day and it had been sprinkling most of the morning. As they looked around they found that there was not an outlet and they decided to leave. However, at that time a heavy rain started and continued for about ½ hour. After awhile they felt cold so they started a little fire with a part of a cedar tree that had blown down into the hole. They sat there talking until they fell asleep. Dad said he woke up feeling very sick and the entire cave was filled with smoke. His friend, Roland, was asleep. When he shook him he could not wake him and he realized that they were in serious trouble.
Dad covered the fire with sand and was finally able to wake up Roland. It took them several hours to recover from lack of oxygen and smoke inhalation. They finally tried to climb out of the hole but found that they had made a big mistake. There was a 6-foot rim all around the hole and when they would climb up as high as they could climb they would hit the rim, which made it impossible to reach the rope. They tried time and time again to get out of the hole but in their weakened condition they did not have enough strength to hold on to the rope for very long. They spent about an hour and a half building a pyramid with rocks about 6 feet high but eventually ran out of rocks. They continually called for help, but the hole was quite a distance from the highway. Today the hill is adjacent to the highway but at that time the highway was quite a distance West of the present roadway. They were not near any homes and trees were blocking their horses from the view of anyone in the area. At this point Dad and Roland looked at each other and said, “We need help.” They both knew that they weren’t going to get help from any place except the Lord.
They kneeled down by the rock pyramid and Dad tried to ask the Lord to send somebody to get them out of the hole. But he couldn’t say that. He finally prayed for help to get out of the hole. They then tried to climb out and it seemed to be much easier. Roland tried to get a crack or crevice that he could get hold of to pull himself up and out but finally his muscles gave out and he fell all the way down on to the rocks and hurt his arm very badly. Dad realized it was up to him to get them out of the hole. He climbed up the rope again and got his shoulder against a big rock and he was reaching up as far as he could over his head and he was trying and trying and feeling that there must be a crevice to catch hold of and all of a sudden his muscles began to fail and he realized there was no physical way to get out. Dad then talked out loud and said, “Lord I have done all I can do and now I need help." Just at that moment he suddenly felt that he did not have any weight and he felt light as a feather.
Dad took hold of the rope and pushed himself up and at that point he was lying flat in the air looking down at Roland. Dad said that Roland’s eyes were as big as saucers. He pushed himself lightly and he went up 6 feet into the air. At the moment that he took hold of the rope he felt his full weight again and he came snapping down. At that point he had to struggle to get out of the hole. He was then able to pull Roland out. After this experience dad always said that he knew that the Lord, for some reason, had provided a miracle for him, and he always felt that he owed the Lord service to him to pay for whatever it was that he wanted him to do in this life. He also talked about what a great sensation it was to be able to “fly”.
From high school on Dad was completely self supporting. Determined to go to college – for six months he saved some $2,000 dollars working on the farm, being a carpenter and operating heavy equipment on the Navajo Indian Reservation building dams. He was able to work from early morning until late at night, all the hours he wanted to work. In the fall of 1941 as he was on his way to deposit the money he had earned into a Winslow bank, somehow it was all stolen from his pocket. Undaunted, within an hour he obtained a job in Winslow at the J. C. Penney store doing inventory for three months. Additional construction jobs working heavy construction equipment for Tanner Construction Co. at the airport in Safford and in Yuma at the air base surveying, lining out the airway, the runways, and killing sidewinder rattlesnakes helped to finance a semester at the University of Arizona’s pre-med program.
While at the U of A in Tucson he was a cook and a soda fountain jerk at the University Drug and he also worked as a lifeguard and swimming instructor at the Conquistador Hotel. Dad was waiting to be enlisted in the Navy but they never called him up so he went home and helped his dad who had just purchased a large farm in St. Johns. During the three months he was home he met our mother, Maxine Morgan, who was in St. Johns visiting her grandmother Francis Christensen, and after a week of getting to know each other they were engaged. A year later on September 12, 1944 they were married in St. Johns at Grandma Christensen’s home.
Two month’s later -- On November 4, 1944 Dad’s father, LeRoy, was in Grants, New Mexico bailing hay with his brother-in-law and they were just coming in from the grass fields when without any warning, a train struck their pickup and he and his brother-in-law were instantly killed. Dad’s father was 49 years of age. Two weeks later on November 17, 1944 mom and dad were sealed for time and for all eternity in the Mesa Arizona Temple. During World War II Dad served in the Army Air Corp as a flight instructor until the end of the war. Throughout his life he was very patriotic. He installed a large flagpole in the front yard of our home and for many years he proudly flew the American flag.
After being discharged from the Army, Dad attended the University of Utah -In order to support his family and pay for school he became a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune and he was also a commercial and private flight instructor at the Salt Lake Airport. It took him two years to earn his B. S. Degree in Speech, with honors. Following his graduation from the University of Utah mom and dad moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where Dad attended Harvard Law School. The Dean of the Harvard Law School told Dad he wouldn’t make it past the first year if he tried to support his family with an off-campus job. Dad explained that, in his financial condition, he wouldn’t be there after the first month if he didn’t. For 3 years he went to class during the day, taught full-time in an aviation school at night, and grabbed four hours of sleep somewhere in-between. He graduated in 1951.
Dad and Mom returned to St. Johns to live in the Tanner home and dad hung up his shingle and practiced law. He was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, served as a Director of the County Civil Defense Organization, and he was on the Board of Directors of the Jaycees. He ran for county attorney on the Republican ticket – not really believing there was any chance to get elected -- because at that time there were 17 Democrats for every Republican. But in 1952 he was elected the first Republican County Attorney in Apache County. Dad and Mom probably would have stayed in St. Johns but the Democrats were so upset that Dad won that they contested the election and for many months he did not get paid. The matter was finally resolved in Dad’s favor. During this time he had frequent legal associations with an attorney named Irving Jennings who invited Dad to join the Phoenix firm of Jennings, Strouss, Salmon and Trask. In 1953 Dad resigned his position as County Attorney and moved his family to Phoenix.
In 1956 Dad became Vice-President and general counsel of an international construction and development company named the James Stewart Company. Seven years later Dad became a partner in a newly formed law firm and from that time on he was in private practice. He was engaged primarily in the buying, selling, development, syndication and management of real property.
Dad was a great provider for our family. He and mom had six children, James, Susan, Jessie, David, Sydney, and Morgan. The age span from the oldest to the youngest is 16 years. He was very generous to each of the children in his family. He paid for our education, missions for the boys, travel abroad for his three girls, musical lessons, cars, entertainment, and vacations.
We always had all the comforts of life. He was loyal to his family, church and country; industrious, friendly to everyone and loving to his family and friends.
Dad felt that service in the community was important. He was a member of the Board of Trustees for the Phoenix Civic Center Management Board, Counsel for the Phoenix Symphony Guild and he was a Board Member for the Phoenix Symphony Association. He served on Public Education Committees and served on the Theodore Roosevelt Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
Dad had a keen mind and could recall numerous facts and never had to look up information in a book or encyclopedia. All we had to do was ask our dad a question and he could generally tell us the answer.
Dad was a valiant worker in the church. One of his favorite callings was when he was the Scottsdale Stake Mission President. He loved to talk to people about the church and had great success in his missionary efforts. He served on the High Council, as a Seminary Teacher, and for many years he was the Gospel Doctrine Teacher. In 1978 he was set apart as a Sealer in the Arizona Temple by President Spencer W. Kimball and he loved that calling.
Dad and mom served a mission in Nauvoo, Illinois. Dad was happy when he was assigned to the temple site because he had an opportunity to share the history of the temple and his testimony to the many visitors. He was thrilled to be able to travel back to Nauvoo to see the newly constructed temple before it was dedicated.
Dad developed his love of growing plants and flowers from his mother. She loved flowers and grew masses of them all over their large lot in St. Johns from early spring to winter. She taught him the names of many flowers and how to care for them. He developed a “green thumb”.
All of his plants and flowers were bigger, greener and prettier than others. Over the years we had beautiful irises, gladiolas, roses, marigolds and gardenias, in our yard. It was therapy for him to stand outside at night with a hose in his hand and he spent hours watering all of his plants. He loved to watch his flowers bloom.
Dad enjoyed taking pictures (he had thousands of slides), stamp collecting, playing golf, and collecting miniature elephants. The elephants in his collection were from all over the world.He purchased most of them but some were given to him by children and grandchildren. Several years ago each child and grandchild received an elephant from Dad’s collection.
Dad loved acquiring and reading books. His large library contained books on a variety of topics. However, one area that he was most interested in was the Dead Sea Scrolls. -Throughout the years he studied in depth all information available to him regarding the scrolls and bought many books on the topic. Dad was also well versed in the scriptures. Recently I came across an old set of scriptures that belonged to him that were well worn with use. Dad had a great love for and an understanding of the scriptures.
In 1974 dad and mom took a BYU tour of Greece and Israel. In his journal he records his first day in Jerusalem:
“I had dreamed of someday seeing Jerusalem from the time I was a small boy. I asked people every question I could think of about it, read the bible stories about it, and read and re-read a wonderful illustrated travel book about Israel, Egypt and other mid-east countries from my grandparent’s library. When we arrived in Jerusalem the bus driver took us to the New city of Jerusalem and so that evening we had not yet had a view of the Old City of Jerusalem. When we got up the next morning and got on the bus the skies were dark and cloudy. We finally stopped on top of Mt. Scopus high above the city just north of the Mount of Olives. We got out of the bus far enough away so we had to walk up the hill about 50 yards to the top. When we reached the top and looked over the edge, there was the Old Walled City far below across the Kidron Valley.
As my eyes focused on the Temple Mount where the Gold “Dome of the Rock” was situated, and the rest of the Old City spread out before my eyes, I suddenly was overpowered with a great spiritual reaction. My whole body and soul was filled with a wonderful indescribable feeling; a feeling that I had come home after a long, long absence. A feeling of total spiritual fulfillment.
Once before in my life I had experienced the same feeling. In 1932, when I was eight years old I lived in St. Johns, Arizona. My mother passed away just three days after Christmas. Prior to her last illness, my father was working as the superintendent on a road construction job near Mesa, Arizona. My Grandparents Henry C. and Margaret Jarvis Overson were on Temple Missions in the Mesa Arizona Temple. After the funeral they both needed to return to their assignments.
So my 3-½ year old brother Lee and I lived with my grandparents in Mesa until school was out in May of 1933. My grandparents were released from their mission at that time, and my brother went with them to live in St. Johns. I went to Joseph City, Arizona to live for a year with my Uncle Marion Tanner. He had a son Charles, just a year older than me. I spent the summer there and then attended the 4th grade in the Joseph City one room schoolhouse. After a year I became very homesick for my father, my brother, my home, grandparents and all my friends in St. Johns.
My father finally decided I should go home and live with my grandparents again. He came for me, and we left very early in the morning. As we got closer to home, I began to get more and more excited.
The last mile was up a long hill from the top of which you could see all of St. Johns below. My father, like the bus driver in Jerusalem, stopped the car below the crest of the hill and we walked to the top. Just as the sun was coming up, I gazed down at the green alfalfa fields below,
-and at the tree lined streets, and the familiar homes surrounding the trees and gardens of my home town. At that moment I experienced the same wonderful spiritual home coming feeling I was to have again 40 years later in my biblical home – Jerusalem.”
Following that trip mom and dad returned a few more times to the Middle East and also traveled extensively throughout the world where Dad enjoyed seeing locations that, for many years, he had only read and studied about. During a favorite trip in 1979 Dad and Mom hired a Syrian archaeologist who drove them into Syria (without a visa) to see the 20,000 newly excavated ancient clay tablets which had been found and were creating a sensation in the biblical archaeological circles. Prior to the trip they had also made a very large contribution to the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden Fund and they were thrilled to be able to go to the dedication ceremony in Jerusalem.
Dad was a well-known lecturer on archaeology and ancient documents and other writings of Egypt and Israel. He was Chairman of the Board of the Mormon Archaeology and Research Foundation, which was the chief contributor to the Brigham Young University’s Excavation in Fayyum, Egypt. He was also Director and contributor to Brigham Young University’s microfilming of ancient Christian documents in Egypt. He was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Service Award from Brigham Young University.
For many years mom and dad have suffered from Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. During the past several years their condition might well be compared with the story told of John Quincy Adams who in his 80th year was laboriously walking down the street in Boston; A friend stopped and asked: “And how is John Quincy Adams today?” The former President of the United States replied, “Thank you, John Quincy Adams is well, sir, quite well, I thank you. But the house in which he lives at present is becoming dilapidated. It is tottering upon its foundations. Time and seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is pretty well worn out, its walls are much shattered, and it trembles with every wind. The old tenement is becoming almost uninhabitable, and I think John Quincy Adams will have to move out of it soon, but he himself is quite well, Sir, quite well.”
During the last few years mom and dad have been cared for by Julie and Brian Flammer and their children Diana, Doug, Maria and Natalie. During this time, although their bodies appeared to be “dilapidated” and “tottering on their foundations” My dad continued to show his love for our mother in many ways. Sometimes he would stand respectfully at his place at the dinner table until mom was seated On a good day he was able to hold her hand and tell her how much he loved her.
Julie said, “Even though dad could not speak very well, he managed to tell us thank you more than anyone else.” He would tell us “thank you for caring for Maxine’s needs”.
This past week I have been re-reading some documents written by my dad. He said that his wife’s encouragement, support and understanding sustained him through the difficult years at the University of Utah and Harvard Law School, and throughout his life provided him with his principal source of incentive. Our Dad loved, supported and protected our mom. We believe that dad was blessed with the desire of his heart and through his tremendous inner strength he was able to stay alive throughout mom’s illness until she passed away and then 11 days later he passed away.
Words cannot express how thankful we are to the Flammer family and all of the caregivers for their loving care of our parents and the kindnesses shown to family members.
Many of Mom and Dad’s 34 grandchildren and a few of their 43 great-grandchildren are here today. Family and friends have come from far away and at great expense. I would like to thank each of you for coming today to honor Dad.
Dad knew his origin and destination. He knew the meaning of living and dying – that only thorough birth and through death could we have eternal life. When Dad spoke at his Grandma Overson’s funeral he used the following two examples in his talk and I would like to repeat them today. William Wordsworth in his “Ode on Intimations of Immortality” wrote:
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home.”
Dad ended Grandma Overson’s funeral talk by giving the following anonymous analogy:
“I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says: “There! She’s gone!” Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living weight to the place of destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her; and just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There! She’s gone!” There are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!” ---and such is dying.
We are thankful that we have such a wonderful father. We are glad to know that mom and dad are now together free from all infirmities. I would love to hear my dad’s description of his reunion with mom and other family members and friends. I believe if dad were here today he would joyfully express to each one of us that “there really is no place like home.”
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.
