Elsie Tanner Lant


ELSIE TANNER was born on September 22, 1849 at Kanesville (now Council Bluffs), Pottawattamie County, Iowa. Her father, John Joshua Tanner (1811-1896) was born in Greenwich, Washington County, New York; which is north of Albany, in the Hudson River Valley. He was a descendant of four Mayflower pilgrims: John Cooke, Francis Cooke, Richard Warren, and Miles Standish. John Joshua Tanner joined the church in 1832, when he was 20 years of age. He married Rebecca Archibald Smith (1816-1854) in 1835 in Kirtland, Ohio. She had been born in Bolton, Warren County, New York; the daughter of William Smith (1779-1858) who came from Milford, Connecticut; and Lydia Jane Calkins (1787-1874) from Dutchess County, New York.

When Elsie was only four and a half, she had the sad experience of losing her mother, Rebecca. Elsie was the youngest of her mother's surviving children, and she probably later felt crowded out by her step-mothers and all of their children, especially since her only sister had married in 1854 before their mother's death. Her four brothers all left home by about age 18. In about 1865, when she was 15, Elsie also left the farm in South Cottonwood and went to stay with her relatives in Payson, Utah County, where she would live the rest of her life. All four of her brothers, her step-grandmother Elizabeth Beswick Tanner, and many other Tanner relatives lived in the little town of Payson. Many of her uncles and brothers were in the freighting business together, going between California and Utah, and also they raised livestock and had many horses, for which Payson was an ideal location. Her brothers were still single at this time, and Elsie kept house for them. Later Elsie moved to the home of her uncle, bishop Joseph Smith Tanner, and helped with the household duties for his large family.

While here, she met and married David Lant (1830-1908), a convert from England. He was the son of Thomas and Ann Pearce Lant, and was born March 14, 1830 at Romsey, Hampshire, England. He and Elsie were married on April 5, 1869 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, by Daniel H. Wells who was Second Counselor to Brigham Young. David was twenty years older than Elsie, with another wife, Elizabeth Hurley, twenty years older than he (forty years older than Elsie). David was one of the happiest of men, though, and Elsie loved him, in spite of their age difference. He was 39 and she was 19 when they married. David was a school teacher.

The other wife, Elizabeth, had had only one child by David, a son Thomas who had died in infancy in England; she also had a daughter from an earlier marriage, who had passed away. However, Elizabeth was raising a foster son and two orphaned grandchildren when Elsie moved into the family. In age Elsie could have been Elizabeth's granddaughter, but they seemed to get along. Elsie lived in a house on North Main Street, where the John T. Lant home was later built, and Elizabeth lived through the block on First West Street. Elsie's children remembered Elizabeth fondly. She died in 1887.

To Elsie and David were born nine children, six daughters and three sons: 

      1. ELIZABETH ANN LANT,
           b. 4 July 1870
           and died 12 Apr 1898 at Spanish Fork,
	   at the age of 27.  She married
           (1) Franklin Demarcus HAYMORE as a plural wife.
	      (Plural marriage was by then illegal in Utah)
	      Had four children:
	        David Franklin HAYMORE,
		  b. 1889 at Payson;
	        Mildred Adaline HAYMORE,
		  b. 1891 at San Pedro, Mexico;
		Alvino Antonio HAYMORE,
		  b. 1893 at San Pedro, Mexico;
		John Lester HAYMORE,
		  b. 1895 at Mapleton, Utah.
           ELIZABETH ANN had become fed up with polygamy and
	   returned to Utah before John Lester was born.
	   She then married
	   (2) Andrew CRUMP, an older bachelor Englishman,
	      and had one child:
	        Daniel Wesley CRUMP,
		  b. 1896 at Spanish Fork, Utah.
	   ELIZABETH ANN died in childbirth with her 6th child
	   in 1898, and the child died also.
	   ELIZABETH'S brother JOHN T. LANT and his bride LETITIA
	   took in one of the HAYMORE children and helped raise
	   him for a time.
      2. REBECCA CLOTILDA ("Tillie") LANT,
           b. 28 Apr 1872 and died 22 Jan 1955 in Payson,
	   at the age of 82.  She married
	   (1) Franklin Edgar HAYMORE, who was the son of
	      her older sister's husband by a previous marriage.
	      They had one child:
	        Elsie Lurine HAYMORE,
		  b. 1888 at Payson.
	   REBECCA CLOTILDA LANT then married
	   (2) James Martin DIXON (one child:
	        Earl Martin DIXON,
		  b. 1905 at Payson, Utah).
	   James died in 1908; Tillie then married
	   (3) John BARRETT in 1913, and he died in 1934.
	   Tillie married for the fourth time to
	   (4) John LOVELESS, in 1935.  He died in 1941.
	   Tillie was divorced once and widowed 3 times.
      3. ELSIE LOUISA ("Ella") LANT,
           b. 20 June 1873
           and died 19 Dec 1936 at Payson, at the age of 63.
	   Married Albert KERR (9 children, all born in Payson:
	        Edna Iretta KERR, b. 1891;
		Ruth KERR, b. 1895;
	        Blanche KERR, b. 1898;
		Elsie KERR, b. 1901;
		Margaret KERR, b. 1903;
		Kenneth Albert KERR, b. 1906;
		Bert Lant KERR, b. 1909;
		Rex KERR, b. 1911;
		Edith KERR, b. 1913
      4. DAVID BARNABAS LANT,
           b. 14 Sep 1874 at Payson, d. 4 May 1947;
           He was the "black sheep" of the family and became
	   an outlaw at the time of Butch Cassidy.
	   DAVE "vanished" in 1898 after escaping from
	   jail three times.  His whereabouts, descendants, and
	   the time and place of his death, were unknown to the
	   family for nearly 100 years
	   (see LANT biography);
      5. JOHN TANNER LANT,
           b. 8 May 1877 and died 19 Oct 1966
	   at Payson, at the age of 89. He married
	   (1) LETITIA ANN ("Letty") DAVIS.
	   They had 7 children:
	        Elsie Lucile LANT, b. 1898 at Payson;
		Donna Margaret LANT, b. 1901 at Payson;
		David Lester LANT, b. 1904 at Garland, Utah;
		John Glen LANT, b. 1906 at Garland, Utah;
		Harold LANT, b. 1908 at Garland, Utah;
	      **IRMA LANT, b. 1910 at Garland, Utah;
	        son LANT, stillborn 1914 at Payson, Utah
           (2) Elizabeth Charlotte ("Lottie") LEE (Finlayson)
	   They had 3 children:
	        Richard Lee LANT,
		  b. 1923 at Toppenish, Washington;
		Nancy Lee LANT,
		  b. 1928 at Bellingham, Washington;
		John Tanner LANT, Jr.,
		  b. 1930 at Bellingham, Washington,
		      lived only one day.
	   JOHN TANNER LANT was an influential businessman and
	   mayor of Payson (see LANT biography);
      6. LYDIA JANE LANT, b. 30 Mar 1879 and died 25 Dec 1934
           at Iona, Idaho, at the age of 55.
	   Married William Allen BERRY (two children:
	        Charlotte BERRY, b. 1898 at Mercur, Utah;
		Clinton BERRY, b. 1901 at Mercur, Utah);
      7. WILLIAM ISAIAH LANT,
           b. 6 Jan 1881 and died 11 Apr 1900 at Payson,
	   at the age of 19, while working in the mines at Eureka
      8. EDITH IZELLA LANT,
           b. 9 July 1882 and died 1 Dec 1963 at Payson,
	   at the age of 81.
	   Married Lyman BAKER.  Had three children:
	        Natalia Delores BAKER,
		  b. 1902 at Silver City, Utah;
		George Lant BAKER,
		  b. 1903 at Payson;
		John Lyman BAKER,
		  b. 1908 at Mercur, Utah.
      9. LEAH LANT,
           b. 11 May 1884 and died 3 Oct 1965
	   at Salt Lake City, at the age of 81.
	   Married Simon Harold HIGGINBOTHAM.  Had one child:
	        Louise HIGGINBOTHAM, b. 1904 at Salt Lake City.

Because of the handicap David Lant had sustained at age 14 in England, while working for the railroad company (losing one arm, and three fingers from his remaining arm), he had a difficult time making a living on his twenty acre farm, so he took up herding for the town, earning a cent a day for each head. Many times the families whose cows he herded would make payment in clothing or other goods. Brother Lant spent the summer herding and the winter teaching school and gathering up food and clothes for pay. The family also hunted and fished, picked wild currants along the ditch banks, raised rabbits and fowl, and later picked and dried fruit from their own orchard.

Elsie worked hard. Every year she refilled the straw tick mattresses, got the fruit ready for drying, made rag rugs for the floor and stretched them over the straw padding. She cooked and washed and planned for her growing family. She also made the clothes for the family and taught her daughters to sew.

The atmosphere of the home was religious with everyone walking to Church or riding in the one horse white-top buggy. At church they put the babies to sleep in the window sills while they listened to the Bishop or to Elsie's good husband instruct the flock. David was First Counselor in the Payson Ward from 1871 to 1891. Elsie was a good teacher; she taught in the Primary and worked in the Relief Society. The older children well remember the Bible stories she read and told them in the evenings. It seems that Elsie, like her mother, didn't like to have her picture taken, because we have no pictures of her.

Elsie suffered a great deal from dropsy and heart disease. She died on August 6, 1888 at Payson, Utah -- she was only thirty-eight, the same age her mother had been when she died. Her oldest daughter Elizabeth Ann was a young bride, age eighteen. Her other eight children ranged in age from four to sixteen. She never knew any of her grandchildren, yet her name was so revered that three, Elsie Lurine Haymore Webb, Elsie Kerr, and Elsie Lucile Lant Oberhansley, were given her name as were four of her great-granddaughters, Ella Lewis Johnson, Elsie Crump Murrish, Elsie Louise Webb Ellsworth, and Elsie Mansfield.

David Lant outlived Elsie by twenty years; he died 15 November 1908 in Payson, at age 78. They are both buried in the Payson city cemetery.

Information Compiled
by Karen Bray Keeley

PREVIOUS
Top of Page
NEXT

INTERNET Adaptation
by Sandra Shuler Bray