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Annie Clark Tanner wrote c
 
  J her fatherJ and  

 
 
    c   
J both in 1934. Then in
1941J the last year of her lifeJ Annie completed her famous autobiographyJ c !


Annie Clark was born on September 24J 1864 in FarmingtonJ Utah. Baptized into the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1873J Annie Clark was rebaptized a year
later during a reformation movement.

She rememberedJ "We raised our right hand and promised not to trade with outsiders.
AlsoJ as childrenJ we promised never to touch teaJ coffeeJ or tobacco. To take the Lord's
name in vain was a great offense. The punishment for disregard of high moral standards
among young people was severe indeed. The young people who transgressed were
required to make an acknowledgement of their sin in a public meeting and ask the
forgiveness of the Saints."

At sixteen in 1880J Annie took classes at the fledgling University of Utah and served as a
counselor to legendary Farmington Primary President Aurelia Spencer Rogers.

From 1882 to 1883 Annie Clark attended the Brigham Young Academy high schoolJ
where Karl G. Maeser acclaimed her as the most brillant student in her class. One of her
teachers was Professor Joseph Marion TannerJ and she was attracted to him.

Professor Tanner also made a strong impression on Annie's classmateJ Alice Louise
Reynolds: "Had I not seen a guide in Rome in 1906J" she saidJ "I should be tempted to
say he was the most handsome man I have ever seen."

On his first visit to the home of Annie Clark's parentsJ the circumspect Tanner brought
along his first wifeJ Jennie. After returning from a buggy ride in the country the next dayJ
Annie wroteJ "Mrs. TannerJ having observed that I had been comparatively indifferent to
her husbandJ brought up the subject of polygamy. I told her that without her approvalJ
our affair was at an end.

"'WhyJ' she answeredJ 'don't you love him?' 'Independent of thatJ' I repliedJ 'without your
approvalJ our interest in each other will go no farther.' She then related her father and
mother's miserable experience in the principleJ and excused herself for the aversion she
felt for itJ but concludedJ 'I have no children although I have been married five years. I
can't deprive Marion of a familyJ and of all the girls I knowJ you are my choice.'"

Annie became the plural wife of Joseph Marion Tanner in 1883. He became president of
Utah State University and superintendent of Church schools.
Anti-polygamy pressures demanded that Annie's marriage be kept secret. Her wedding
night was spent in her parents' home: "As I sat down to a glass of bread and milk the
thought came to meJ 'WellJ this is my wedding supper.' In those few minutes I recalled
the elaborate marriage festivals which had taken place in our own familyJ of the banquets
I had helped to prepare and the many lovely brides among my friends. I even began to
compare their wedding gowns."

Six months laterJ Tanner married a third wife. "I had not seen the third wifeJ but I did
wonder wherein I lacked that so soon he should take another wife. Then I remembered
the doctrine of the Trinity as taught by the Church ² that if one wanted to attain the very
pinnacle of glory in the next world there must beJ at leastJ three wives."

When Tanner was called on a mission to EuropeJ "Annie Clark" supported him and
herself as a school teacher. In 1888J pregnant with the first of her ten childrenJ she went
underground until the baby was born.

Throughout her marriageJ Annie Clark TannerJ like many plural wivesJ was essentially a
hard-working widow: "I had the attitude of many Mormon women in polygamy. I felt the
responsibility of my familyJ and I developed an independence that women in monogamy
never know. A woman in polygamy is compelled by her lone position to make a confidant
of her children. How much more is this true when that woman is left entirely alone."

Annie Clark Tanner was the only female child of Mormon pioneer Ezra T. Clark to build
a home in Farmington. She was the oldest daughter and second child of 10 in the family
of Ezra T. Clark's second wife in polygamyJ Susan Leggett.

Annie used money from her father's estateJ which he bestowed upon his children before
his deathJ to pay for her home's construction. The home was completed in 1901J the year
her father died at 77.

In her autobiographyJ Annie wrote that she acted as general contractorJ a rather unusual
circumstance for a woman at that time: "My father seemed quite pleased to see me drive
off to secure materials at the brick kiln in KaysvilleJ six miles to the north.... After
arranging for the bricksJ I went to CentervilleJ a little town four miles to the southJ and
hired a rock mason to put in the foundation. I had to buy the lumber and hardware and
also arrange for the carpenters and even the planning of the house was under my
direction."

In 1910 Annie Clark Tanner rented out her Farmington home and moved to Provo so her
children could obtain better educations.

In Provo she took a Bible class from Brigham Young Academy's Professor Joseph
PetersonJ a popular instructor later dismissed from his position for teaching evolution
and "higher criticism."

"I had been a teacher of the Bible in several of the organizations of the Church and now
for the first time in my life I was learning some truths which made reasonable
explanation of Bible difficultiesJ" she wrote. "I fully believed that the men who had done
research on the old Hebrew records were just as honest as any scientist. Why should we
turn down their findings?"

Her son Obert Tanner observed that in Provo "the basis of her authority for truth
gradually shifted from the authority of sacred scriptures to the authority of scholars and
universities. She continued to love the scripturesJ but on a selective basis. One scripture
story or doctrineJ one after anotherJ became of doubtful value to herJ if not simply
incredible.

"She ultimately cast her lotJ not mainly with scripturesJ but gradually and more finally
with scholars and their books« from the warm and trusting security of a religious
foundationJ she gleaned whatever solace she could find in the scientific approach of the
less certainJ the less positiveJ the more tentative."

Returning to FarmingtonJ Annie did everything she could to make ends meet. Annie's
Farmington home was her pride and security as she endured much personal strife.

Her polygamous husbandJ J. M. TannerJ squandered most of her inheritance. Tanner

asked her to sell her home to help finance his farm in CanadaJ but she refused.

She built a rental house next door and rented rooms in the main house to famous
orchestra musicians employed at Lagoon. She worked for neighbors - washingJ scrubbing
floors for 15 cents an hour to help her children to receive an education. Six of her
children received a college educationJ including O. C. Tanner.

Though Wilford Woodruff had announced discontinuance of plural marriage on her

twenty-sixth birthdayJ Marion and Annie Tanner continued to live together after the
Manifesto. She bore eight children after 1890J and he entered into three plural
marriages.

On a Sunday morning in 1913J J. M. Tanner made one of his infrequent trips homeJ a
visit Annie never forgot.

During that visit Tanner informed her "that he would not come to Farmington to see us
any more. There had been no previous differences between us except the children's
educationJ to which no reference had recently been madeJ so the statement was a great
shock to me at the time.

"InwardlyJ I felt impelled to persuade him otherwiseJ and I was sure he had expected me
to. I nevertheless controlled myself and made no response to his far-reaching decision.

"My silence at the moment was not an easy thing. YetJ I am aware now that the years of
preceding struggle to live polygamy had all helped to steel me for whatever may come. I
thought in those few moments before he departed: 'I'll be equal to whatever must come.'"

Thus ended their thirty-year marriage. Tanner left her destitute with eight children (two
died in early childhood). Annie was forced to find work as a practical nurse in Salt Lake
City.

After thirty years as a plural wifeJ Annie Clark Tanner concluded the "companionship
between husband and wife in polygamy could not be so close as in monogamy. There was
more independence on both sides in polygamy«. It is needless to observe that
monogamous marriages are by far the more successful. They give security and
confidenceJ and these are the requirements for happiness."

Annie Clark Tanner died in 1942 at the age of seventy-eight in FarmingtonJ UtahJ the
hometown she always hated to leave.

Her gravestone in the Farmington Cemetery has no epitaphJ but words from her
autobiography are appropriate:
Ñ

 




   




   
 
    
    
 


 
 

 

 

 
  



 
   
 Ñ

Annie's enduring legacy is her autobiographyJ 
 J which has been called
by historians a "classic in Mormon literature." It has continued down through the
decades to find wide readership because of her frank and personal observations about
polygamy and living on the "underground" after the LDS Church "Manifesto" renounced
the practice in 1890. She also wrote her mother's and father's biographies.

Annie never did sell her Farmington house. Once her children were grownJ she moved to
Salt Lake City to be closer to some of them and rented her Farmington home. The house
passed to relatives upon her death in 1942.

Many people also know Annie as the mother of the late philosopherJ philanthropistJ
author and University of Utah Professor O.C. TannerJ who made a fortune
"moonlighting" in the jewelry business in Salt Lake City. ObertJ the last of Annie's 10
childrenJ was born in the Farmington home in 1904 and is buried next to Annie in the
Farmington Cemetery.

 


  
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