Joseph Smith Tanner Family

ELIZABETH CLARK HAWS — Not much has been written on the life of Elizabeth Clark Haws, companion to Joseph Smith Tanner. Her life was filled with hardship. She grew up in the home of Elijah and Catherine Floyd Pease Haws. She was one of eleven children. Her parents were born in the state of New York at the same time the prophet Joseph Smith was born. Her roots go back to the colonization of America.

Her parents were married in 1829 in Marietta, Ohio. It was while in Ohio that they heard the voice of the Spirit declaring the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. By following the places of the birth of their children, one can tell that they followed the body of the Saints in their westward migration. Elizabeth was born on February 23, 1843, in Van Buren County, Iowa. No doubt, the Haws family knew the John Tanner family. Each family lived on the west of the Mississippi River across from Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Saints lived after being driven from their homes in Missouri.

It was while in Iowa that her younger brother Joseph Smith Haws was born, two years after her own birth. His life was not to be long upon the earth, much like the lives of many of Elizabeth’s own children. Her brother, Joseph Smith Haws, died before his fourth birthday and prior to the family immigration to Utah. Elizabeth’s father and mother, Elijah and Catharine Floyd Pease Haws, with their six children: Lydia Catherine (16), Mary Eliza

(14), Lucy Ann (13), Lois Patten (11), and William Wesley (5) along with Elizabeth Clark (9), were listed in the Joel Edmunds Company in 1852. The company departed on June 10, 1852 and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley between September 8-10, 1852. In the listing the spelling of the Haws name was Hawes.

At the age of seventeen, Elizabeth married Joseph Smith Tanner, the handsome, hard working son of John Tanner. Theirs was a wonderful life together as they worked to establish a righteous home filled with industry and hope. Joseph’s mother, the widowed Elizabeth Beswick Tanner, lived with them. Joseph felt the responsibility to care for his mother. Their home was also a place of stopping off as the Brethren traveled from Salt Lake City on their journeys to Southern Utah. The prophet Brigham Young graced their table on many occasions.

Joseph, having been called as the bishop of Payson, Utah, was heavily involved in the management of the affairs of the Church. These duties coincided with the development of the community as well. Side by side, Elizabeth and Joseph worked together to care for those in need and administer to the affairs of the Church as well as care for their growing family.

Her life was not easy as she felt the pain of burying eight of her thirteen

Joseph Smith Tanner Family

ANNA SARIAH TANNER — Anna was born on a wintry day of December in Payson, Utah, to Joseph Smith and Elizabeth Clark Haws Tanner. She was the third child in that family and was one of the five children who grew to maturity and had posterity. Six of her siblings died in infancy, which was hard to bear.

When she was fourteen years of age, she received a patriarchal blessing at the hands of W. G. Young in the home of her parents in Payson, Utah. In that blessing she was blessed with all of the "former blessings and the blessing of the fathers for thou hast been blessed to come forth under the covenant, one of the daughters of one of the sons of god and if you will please god do not give your self in marriage to none other than one of the sons of god, . . . Keep thy self pure even as thou art pure today and let chastity be thy constant companion and virtue the brightest jewel in the crown and seek unto the Lord in the days of thy youth and thy feet shall be kept in the narrow path. Thou shalt become a mother in Zion and thy heart shall be comforted and peace shall be in thy brain, and I bless you with the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob pertaining to your self for thou art of the lineage of Joseph. Much has been given and much will be required of you."

Anna did marry a son of God, Hyrum White, when he was seventeen and she was eighteen in Payson, Utah. Nine months later, Anna gave birth

to a beautiful daughter, Elizabeth Albertine White, on March 7, 1882. As promised in the blessing by the patriarch "much was required" of Anna, for in the birth of her daughter she gave her own life on March 28, just days after the birth, leaving an eighteen-year-old husband to care for his infant daughter.

Not only did her husband morn for her death, but her father, Joseph Smith Tanner, was faced with the birth of his youngest daughter, Adelade, who was born on March 14 and died two weeks later along with his wife Elizabeth, Anna’s mother.

Anna has been blessed with a wonderful posterity, and though she was denied the privilege of seeing them grow here on earth, she has been blest to receive them in eternity.

HENRY SMITH TANNER — Henry Smith Tanner was born February 15, 1869, in Payson, Utah, to Joseph Smith and Elizabeth Clark Haws Tanner. On his paternal side he was the grandson of John and Elizabeth Beswick Tanner and on the maternal side of Elijah and Catherine Pease Haws, all of whom were early Utah Mormon pioneers. At the time of Henry’s birth, his father was serving on a mission to the "Muddy," having been called there by President Brigham Young to assist in the colonizing of that section of the country.

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