Introducing Sandra Tanner and Her Heritage

Chris Thomas [00:00:01] Hello, I'm Chris Thomas and I'm again in the lovely Mormon Stories studio with my good friend Dr. John Dehlin. And we are here for another interview with the one and only Sandra Tanner. Today we are going to be talking about a number of people that Sandra knew over the course of her life.

Chris Thomas [00:00:30] Many of these have been mentioned in passing here and there in the archival interviews of Mormon Stories of Sandra Tanner that John Dehlin has conducted over the years, but would like to kind of pull all those together and talk about them a little bit in more detail.

Chris Thomas [00:00:53] As I said to Sandra, the Dr. Seuss book, oh, the Places yous'll Go. Well, we can entitle this. Oh, the people you'll know, because these interactions, some of them very brief, others of them more extensive, are just amazing to me.

Chris Thomas [00:01:13] It's not unusual for Sandra and I to have late night phone conversations that will last from one to two hours. And it's not that we have no more to say. We are just exhausted by that point. And so from our vantage point, this is just one of those conversations that we are going to sort of get on the record to hear from Sandra. And Dr. John Dehlin is gracious enough to allow us to do that here and to record that. Sandra, that may reflect on John not being quite as smart as we thought he was, but nonetheless, we are very much in his debt. So, Sandra, very glad that you've agreed to sit for this, and thanks so much for being here today.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:05] Well, it's been good visiting. Yeah.

Chris Thomas [00:02:08] We've already had quite a remarkable conversation before this conversation. And so I want us to begin a little bit counter intuitively, because I want to start with somebody you didn't personally know. I think by this point, everybody in the world knows that you are the great, great granddaughter of Brigham Young.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:32] Yes.

Chris Thomas [00:02:33] What? And. And they know a fair amount about Brother Brigham.

Sandra Tanner [00:02:36] Yes.

Chris Thomas [00:02:37] But they don't know as much about his wife, his legal wife from whom you descend. Right. And I just thought we might start by talking about Mary Ann angel and some of the people we'll talk about, we'll have a photo of. So, Sandra, tell us what you'd like for us to know about Marianne Angel.

Sandra Tanner [00:03:04] Well, she married Brigham Young after he had lost his first wife and he had two little kids.

Chris Thomas [00:03:12] And.

Sandra Tanner [00:03:13] And as far as history is recorded, Mary Ann took on those two children. I believe they were girls, and was evidently a loving mother. And so she and Brigham evidently had, we assume, a good marriage, solid going forward. Both new into Mormonism back in the 1830s.

Sandra Tanner [00:03:41] And then after, I don't remember just how long they had been married, maybe 10 years before he starts into polygamy. And my thought of her is, what a hard thing, that she had already come into somewhat of a difficult situation to take on two stepchildren and then go on and have her own children.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:12] So I admire her for her pioneer fortitude to step into difficult things in life and persevere. She was, as far as we know, a faithful person to Brigham and her children. But what a sad thing when they get out to Utah. And by then, Brigham has.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:36] By the end of his life, he has 55 wives and a number of them living in the Beehive House or. No, is that the Lion House or the Beehive House? I get the two houses mixed up next door to each other. The one with the gables is at the Lion House.

Sandra Tanner [00:04:58] But Marianne didn't live there. She lived in a white house down the street on, what would it be? South Temple, as you go towards the University of Utah going east. She had a white house down there. And I thought, what a sad thing to have to end up in your later years off in your own house with your husband, entertaining all these younger women. So I admire her for trying to make the best out of a very difficult situation.

Chris Thomas [00:05:39] Now, am I right that Brigham is on missions pretty close to the time they get married initially? Is that. Is that right? Was that part of.

Sandra Tanner [00:05:55] I don't remember when he went on his different missions, but, yeah, when he went to Europe, England, wherever it was, yeah, he was gone for a couple years, I believe.

Chris Thomas [00:06:04] And so she's basically taking care of

Sandra Tanner [00:06:06] herself and her kids. A lot of these women, when their husbands went on these missions, were left to fend for themselves. It was a very hard time financially for the women that were left behind.

Chris Thomas [00:06:21] And so we don't get sort of too much inside baseball here, because there's a lot of viewers of Mormon stories now, I think, that have never been Mormon, don't know the culture. Just kind of quickly tell us, location wise, how close the house where all Brigham's wives are was to Temple Square and then where Mary Ann's house would have been in relation to that.

Sandra Tanner [00:06:51] Well, the Brigham Young Beehive and Lion house would have been a block from the Salt Lake Temple. So it was close, within walking distance between the buildings. Marianne's house would have been a few blocks east of that home.

Sandra Tanner [00:07:13] So, I mean, you could walk there, but, I mean, it would have. It wasn't like it was next door. It was a few blocks down the road, where she would have had separation emotionally from the interaction daily of him with all of the different wives that stayed there at the house. And not all of his wives lived in the lion house, but I think they had bedrooms for 18 or something, 20. I'm not sure you count the gables on the sides. So there's gables down the two sides of the house. It goes long into the block. And each gable represented a separate apartment for a wife.

Sandra Tanner [00:07:57] And she had her bedroom, and down below it she had a sitting room. And then there was a common kitchen in the basement dormitory. It's just kind of an odd situation.

Chris Thomas [00:08:11] Is your impression that one of the reasons she does she initiate having her own home?

Sandra Tanner [00:08:17] That was my understanding in the family, was that she started out living a short time there in the Lion House, I believe. But I make an assumption that when they had all the women in the Lion House, that that was just like one woman too many. And Jesus, I want my own. Well, they already had the white house down the street, but she wanted to go live there exclusively and not live with all the women. People talk very nonchalantly about their ancestors that lived polygamy without really thinking through the implications of the logistics of trying to operate a home with three dozen women or whatever they had going on there. It just would have been a monumental task.

Chris Thomas [00:09:20] And I know so little about this history. Have you visited where their home was? The house she lived in?

Sandra Tanner [00:09:35] Is that part of the home isn't there anymore? I mean, it's been gone for a long time, but yeah, I've seen pictures of it there. I haven't gone and actually tried to figure out the pinpoint the place on the street where it would have been.

Sandra's Brigham Young Family Lineage

Chris Thomas [00:09:54] And while we're in the Young lineage, Brigham Young Jr. Is your great grandfather.

Sandra Tanner [00:10:03] Right.

Chris Thomas [00:10:04] What don't we know about him that we ought to know about him, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [00:10:09] Wow. Probably a lot, and I don't claim to know it, but there is someone that was gone an awful lot from home. Now, my great grandma lived down in Taylor, Arizona. That's on the edge of. I think it's the Navajo reservation. And he came through the area speaking. And that's how they met.

Chris Thomas [00:10:38] And this would be Abby Stevens.

Sandra Tanner [00:10:41] Abby Stevens, yeah. So down in Taylor, Arizona area. And she would have been 17 and he was 51. I don't think they had a very long courtship, but she could have married someone else. And as the family understanding that she did have a fellow that was pursuing her, and I don't know his age, so I don't know if it would have been someone her age or another older man. Anyway, she chose Brigham Jr and my assumption would be that she's living down on the reservation, edge of the reservation and not a whole lot of prospects down there, so.

Chris Thomas [00:11:35] But Brigham was like a rugged existence.

Sandra Tanner [00:11:38] Very rugged, yes. And Brigham Jr. Comes through someone of substance, someone of prestige, someone that had sufficient means to support a family. So even though she would be becoming his third wife, it must have looked better than what she already had. She was a good looking woman. I'm sure she could have found other suitors,

Chris Thomas [00:12:07] really in the pictures. And Dr. Dehlin is interspersing them now and again. She's very attractive. There we are. Say hello to the studio audience. Hi everyone.

Guest [00:12:18] I'm here playing my favorite role, which is just technical support.

Chris Thomas [00:12:24] Just a lovely person. But unlike your great great grandmother, you actually knew your great grandmother.

Sandra Tanner [00:12:32] Yes, I knew this lady.

Chris Thomas [00:12:34] Tell us what you remember of your access to her and what your memories are of her.

Sandra Tanner [00:12:42] Okay. I don't know how much I would have met her when I was in young, in early grammar school ages, but we came to Salt Lake City from Southern California every summer to see family. Both my grandparents, sets of grandparents lived in Salt Lake and a number of aunts and uncles and cousins and 23rd cousins and everything else. But so we would come in the summer and visit with different people. And one of the trips we would make is up to Abby's house on the Avenues.

Sandra Tanner [00:13:19] And in her old age she lived in the house with her. I think her daughter was widowed. And she stayed on the upstairs floor because it was hard for her to go up and down the stairs. And the daughter lived on the bottom half of the building.

Sandra Tanner [00:13:37] So when we would come, we would have to go upstairs to visit with Abby. And she was just a nice old lady. I didn't even think of her as a survivor of polygamy, you know, she was just my great grandma. And when I'd visit as a young person in grammar school, she would make. She'd take a handkerchief.

Sandra Tanner [00:14:02] So like if you got a Kleenex here to give you the idea, she would take the edge of, of the two corners here and tie them off for the hands of a doll. And same with the feet. And then she would take the middle part to make a head. And so she put a piece of cotton in this middle part of the cloth and put a little thread around it, you know. And so she would make these little quick toys for a kid to play with. And I was so impressed, you know, wow. You know, who could make a doll out of a handkerchief? Well, so these were bigger handkerchiefs, like

Chris Thomas [00:14:44] in that day, Real handkerchief.

Sandra Tanner [00:14:45] Real handkerchiefs that you could use, you know. And so. But she'd make these cute little dolls for me to keep me entertained, so I didn't interfere with the adults having real conversations. And then as I got a little older, then she started telling me survivor stories of what it was like to live in pioneer days.

Chris Thomas [00:15:06] And.

Sandra Tanner [00:15:06] And then she'd tell me about how married to Brigham Jr. Of course, this is. They were married before the manifesto in 87. So three years before the manifesto. But it was already hard for the Mormons to lift polygamy. The government was already trying to arrest all the church leaders. So she had these great stories of how Brigham Jr. Would have to evade the marshal, Federal marshal. And her favorite story was the time that they got advance word that the federal marshal was on his way because he had heard that Brigham Jr. Was at her house and his main family was in Salt Lake, I believe.

Sandra Tanner [00:15:47] So anyways, she had him get in bed in her night clothes and nightcap and told him, just lay there like, you're really sick. And so when the marshal came to the door, want to know where Brigham was and can they search the house? And she said, oh, sure, you can search your house, no problem, wherever you want to look. Just don't disturb my poor mother. She's sick and about to die. And so you can look anywhere you want, but just please don't disturb her because she's very ill. So they search the house, they don't find him, they go on their way. And her and Brigham have a big laugh about how they fooled the federal marshal by him playing like he was the sick mom.

Sandra Tanner [00:16:29] Okay. To me, this was this great faith promoting story, how God protects the prophets when they're faithful to do his bidding. And it never occurred to me that, yes, but he's hiding from the law because he's breaking the law. You know, the federal guys are always presented as the bad guys, and all the polygamists were just following God and they just get persecuted for it.

Chris Thomas [00:16:56] So. So tying this into something that was meant that you mentioned in an earlier interview with John, I remember you saying at one point when you were about 15, you were saying to your mom, you know, if God wanted you to live polygamy, you would do it.

Polygamy and the Mountain Meadows Massacre

Sandra Tanner [00:17:15] Yes.

Chris Thomas [00:17:15] And so are those stories about Abby connected to your attitude as a young girl in India?

Sandra Tanner [00:17:26] Well, they probably were, but I didn't think about it at the time, but they probably had shaped my assumption that polygamy wouldn't have been a hard thing to live.

Chris Thomas [00:17:38] Right.

Sandra Tanner [00:17:39] And my mother's response to me was, sandra, you have no idea what you're even saying. And I didn't.

Chris Thomas [00:17:50] So kind of, kind of shifting gears a little bit here, what were you conscious of? The fact that Brigham Young Jr. Is your great grandfather at that time? As conscious as you were that Abby was your great grandmother. I mean, you know, from the outside, to be in that lineage must have. How did that affect you?

Sandra Tanner [00:18:19] Well, I was more focused on actually on Brigham Young himself. In my family, I grew up with all kind of miraculous stories about how Brigham Young got a revelation, how to lay out the streets of Salt Lake, how he got a revelation, how to build a tabernacle where you could hear a pin drop and all those sorts of things. I heard far more Brigham Young stuff than I ever heard. Joseph Smith, Brigham Jr. I didn't hear much about him.

Sandra Tanner [00:18:46] And I don't know how much I thought about who my great grandma was really married to in that sense, because I never met him. And also, I guess my view of polygamy was somewhat clouded because I never thought of polygamy having to do with sex because this is my old 85 year old grandma or something that's telling me all these stories. And it's not like she was a beauty at that point in her life.

Sandra Tanner [00:19:21] So I never even thought of her as being this young, shapely, good looking girl that the guys would have been chasing. So polygamy to me just sounded like this innocuous concept. But I guess in the back of my mind, I had it all sort of like just some regular family, expanded version. But I never really contemplated the mechanics of living polygamy and the struggle it would have been emotionally for the different women and I'm sure for the man too, to try to balance that kind of a life emotionally with mixed kids, mixed households and all. It just must have been really hard, right?

Chris Thomas [00:20:11] In our conversation, we plan to move in a somewhat chronological fashion, but I want to jump way ahead while we're talking about the Young family. And you have been involved in a couple of overt gestures of, I don't want to say making amends for your young heritage, but reconciliation. One, of course, being the Mountain Meadows descendants. And you have on both sides of your family, you had participants in one way or another with the Mountain Meadow thing. Would you talk to us just a little bit about what that's been like and how you were contacted and what your roles have been in these different events.

Sandra Tanner [00:21:11] Well, I was totally unaware of Mount Mellow Massacre as a young person growing up in Mormonism.

Chris Thomas [00:21:18] Is that right?

Sandra Tanner [00:21:20] Well, families that participated don't brag about this. So no, I did not grow up knowing any of my family's involvement. When Gerald and I had started doing reprints, one of the early reprints we did. So this would be in think the late 60s, somewhere along that line, we did a reprint of John D. Lee's Confessions, or I don't remember what the original title of the book is of John D. Lee's. Anyways, we called it the Confessions of John D. Lee.

Sandra Tanner [00:22:00] I didn't know of my family's involvement when we reprinted John D. Lee's book. And my uncle, this would be Marion Young, who looked a lot like Brigham Young at one point of his life. In fact, a lot of my uncles and cousin male cousins carry the look of the young men as kind of funny. But anyways, Marion came over one day. He had bought the reprint from us, and he came over and he says, sandra, do you realize that James Pierce and Harrison Pierce are in the back of that book as participants in the list?

Sandra Tanner [00:22:44] No, I'd never even thought about it because in the book it's spelled wrong. Pierce in the book is spelled I E. Pierce in our family is spelled with E A. And so it just hadn't even occurred to me. Well, so this is my grandma's line.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:04] So she, my grandma marries into the Brigham Young family. So my grandpa Walter, the great grandson of Brigham Young. So here you've got Brigham Young who's responsible, I think, for in shaping the world to where the massacre happened.

Sandra Tanner [00:23:28] And then the massacre sucks in this whole plan to take care of this wagon train. In 1857 in southern Utah, these immigrants from Arkansas are coming through. The Mormons are about to be at war with the United States. And so whatever reasons you want to make. Anyways, the Mormons decide to attack the wagon train and the whole thing goes amok. And the plan doesn't work out and they have to have a second attack on the wagon train to finish everyone off. And this is where my great grandpa Pierce and great great grandpa Pierce on my grandma's mother's side participated in the Mountain Meadow Massacre. So I've got Brigham Young on my mom's one side and the Pierces on the other half of my mom's family that helped carry out the massacre.

Sandra Tanner [00:24:22] And that's when I learned about all of this stuff, was when my uncle challenged me on the list at the back of the book. And it turns out my grandma had an original of John Delete's book that she now she then owns up to. I mean, she'd never mentioned it before. She said, well, yeah, I've got the original book.

Chris Thomas [00:24:43] Your grandma that helps you with your.

Sandra Tanner [00:24:45] With Gerald.

Chris Thomas [00:24:46] Doctrines and covenants stuff.

Sandra Tanner [00:24:48] Yes, on the study of doctrine and covenants. That's the same one, yeah. She says, oh, well, yeah, her maiden name was Pierce. And so she says, well, yeah, I got the original book. And she cuts it out and shows me. Oh, my goodness, you know. Okay, well, second cousin of my grandma's, whatever she was, was staying at my grandma's house.

Sandra Tanner [00:25:11] My grandma had a big house on the avenues. And because of that, all the shirttail relatives, and there were a lot of them all claimed relationship when it came conference time or when they needed a place to stay because they were doing genealogical research. So my grandma always had people circulating through her big house.

Sandra Tanner [00:25:31] So she has this cousin Mildred staying there. Free rent and board, I guess, but. So Mildred sees the book on grandma's shelf one day and she says, oh, can I take it to read it? And Grandma says, well, yeah, okay, you take a read it. And so some time had passed and grandma never notices the book coming back on the shelf. So she finally asks Mildred, by the way, you know, I'm still waiting for the John D. Lee book to come back.

Sandra Tanner [00:26:04] And Mildred tells her, oh, Sylvia, I destroyed that book. You wouldn't want that on the shelf. I knew you would not want a chance of your children seeing Grandpa Pierce and great Grandpa Pierce name in that book and have them know about all of this. So I destroyed it for you.

Sandra Tanner [00:26:24] Wow, thank you. You know, I hope she looked through it for money. My grandma would stick money in all her books because she couldn't get out to go to the bank. So her books were her bank. One time she was going to get some money out for me to do something for, and she opens up her Bible and she's got all kind of money slashed through her Bible. And I said, grandma, that's a lot of money to keep in that book. And she says, oh, I knew none of my kids were going to pick up a Bible to read it, so I figured that was the safest book to put the money in.

Sandra Tanner [00:27:02] Oh, dear. But anyways, yeah, so I was learning all these things about my family after I left the church. Families don't talk about Mountain Meadow Massacre as a rule. So maybe they do more now because it's enough years that it doesn't affect the younger people to read about their great grandma, grandpa either killing someone or being killed at Mountain Meadow. But in my younger years, no one talked about it.

Participating in Mountain Meadows Commemorations

Chris Thomas [00:27:34] And so how did you get invited or how was contact made for you to participate in a couple of the things down at Mountain Meadow?

Sandra Tanner [00:27:46] Well, I had talked in a couple of different interviews at times about Brigham Young and Mount Meadow Massacre and how it was my family history. And so I don't remember how the first contact was made. It was probably at a Mormon history conference that I may have talked to Barbara Jones Brown.

Sandra Tanner [00:28:16] She worked with Richard Turley, church historian guy that wrote the book on Mountain Meadows, and she worked with him on that. And I knew Barbara's father. He had been faithful Mormon, but would come up from California for conferences and different things, and he would always stop in and visit with me.

Sandra Tanner [00:28:38] And we had a good rapport and kind of friendship, even though he was still believing Mormon. We talked history stuff. And so he had always told Barbara that he had stopped in to see the Tanner. And you need to get to meet Sandra sometime. She's a nice person to talk to or whatever. So Barbara had reached out to me when they were doing the stuff for Mountain Meadows Massacre commemorative things.

Sandra Tanner [00:29:05] And so I was down there, went down to the dedication of the monuments that the church was involved with placing. When was that in? Well, it must have been after 2006, because I think Gerald was already dead. So after that time, at some point, maybe the next year, anyways, went down to the dedication of the big new monument that they put in for that. So in different interviews, I've mentioned the connection. So people have reached out to me on it because of hearing me mention the connection.

Chris Thomas [00:29:46] And what was that like, your interaction with some of the descendants of those who had been attacked?

Sandra Tanner [00:29:55] I got friends with some of the descendants of the Fancher Train. And Patty Norris, for years was the head of the family descendants of the Fancher Train. And she would come out every year to Mountain Meadows from Arkansas for the commemorative. And so I had met her and we became good friends. In fact, she's still on my Facebook with me. Very dear lady. And so she had some interaction with the church historian's office on the monument and how things were laid out and done. I don't think that she had much say in how things were done, but they kept her abreast of what they were doing.

Chris Thomas [00:30:45] And what was all that like personally for you?

Sandra Tanner [00:30:49] I thought it was a wonderful thing for the Mormon Church to acknowledge that these were Mormons that did this. Excuse me. Whether someone wants to make Brigham Young's plan, I think you have to at least concede he was responsible for, for the emotional tone and for Mormons to feel that he would be okay with it.

Chris Thomas [00:31:22] And how did you feel? How did you feel as a descendant of Brigham Young, being there in a conciliatory way with the survivors?

Sandra Tanner [00:31:37] I don't know that I identified that much with the Mormon side as far as, you know, feeling a sense of responsibility or anything. It was more a historic thing, more than an emotional thing for me. I was shocked to find out that the Pierces were down there involved in the actual killing. My grandma never said anything about her parents that would indicate there had been any kind of controversy about her parents. We would just hear all these stories of life down in the Arizona, New Mexico area, of just general pioneer life down in those areas. But she was very protective of the family image and this was true all through the years. My grandma was very careful that we never heard anything negative about any pioneer stories. It was, you know, of course, that's the way our experience was at church. Pioneer stories were always faith promoting or funny.

Chris Thomas [00:32:53] Gotcha.

Sandra Tanner [00:32:54] We never got any really serious stories.

James Wardle and His Remarkable Library

Chris Thomas [00:32:58] Well, let's move. Unless you want to follow up, John, let's move to the Groucho Marx of Mormon history, James Wardle. Tell all of the folk like myself who have never been LDS or inside this part of the restoration, who he is, how in the world he becomes this kind of crossroads and then his own contribution to your lives.

Sandra Tanner [00:33:33] Well, James Wardle was a barber. He had a barber shop on State Street. I think it was 4:24 South State, where the Matheson Courthouse is at today. It would have been part of that property. And there were big old apartment buildings all along there. And on the bottom floor of one of these apartment buildings was James Wardle's barber shop, which looked like 1910.

Chris Thomas [00:34:03] I mean, I think we have a picture of James, don't we?

Sandra Tanner [00:34:07] And so, yeah, it was just, it's up now. It was like an antique barber shop, two chairs, everything you would think of if you saw think Post magazine with illustration cartoon of an old barber shop. I mean, that's what it was like to go to James Barber.

Sandra Tanner [00:34:28] James was reorganized LDS and he was well known in the reorganized church body. James was always known as kind of an amateur historian for the Reorganized Church. He collected just massive amounts of material on everything. He had a huge library at the back of his barbershop, in the room behind the barbershop.

Sandra Tanner [00:35:01] You could hardly walk around in this room because there were shelves in the middle. And so there was just this little rat track or whatever that went around between the books that you could walk around through and up as high as you could go. He had to have a ladder to get up to the top shelves. Is this an old barbershop with real high roof ceiling? You know, and so he had to have a little, I don't know, some kind of ladder thing system to get up to the higher.

Sandra Tanner [00:35:29] But it wasn't just Mormon books. He had all kind of stuff. He was a roller skate champion of Utah and expert on flying saucers. I mean, he had pretty eclectic collection of stuff.

Chris Thomas [00:35:48] And he kind of liked looking like Groucho from what.

Sandra Tanner [00:35:52] Yes, he did. He joked all the time. I mean, he wanted to imitate him. And he had signs upon around on his wall, World's greatest secret spreader. Such statements like that that were up around the upper part of the room. So he was a real character. But he had, because of all this big collection he had. When Gerald started having questions and visited the reorganized LDS Church, he met James Wardle there. James said, well, if you're interested in the early history of Mormonism, you need to come down to my barber shop because I have all the books in the back room, and we can just show you anything you want to see.

Chris Thomas [00:36:36] That is just such a bizarre reality. Yeah, A barber shop with this library in the back.

Sandra Tanner [00:36:44] Yeah. And so you could go into James Shop and ask if you could see it, original first volume of the Millennial Star Times and Seasons or something, and go, okay, just give me a minute. I got to finish this haircut and I'll go get it. And he'd go back in the room and get it and bring it out, and you could sit there in his barbershop and look at the book. He never let anybody borrow any books, but he did Gerald. Once he got to know Gerald, he would let him actually take books home, which was a real amazing privilege, because anyone that has a important library knows you loan stuff out, you will not get some of it back.

Guest [00:37:28] That's right.

Sandra Tanner [00:37:32] And some of our early reprints of the books we did, if you look at them, they will have James Wardle's stamp in the book with his name and address so that you would know if you had taken James book, because he made sure somewhere that book's going to have his name and address stamped in it.

Chris Thomas [00:37:51] You know, I actually have something that came from his library. I must have bought it at Ken Sanders or a benchmark or one of the bookshops around.

Sandra Tanner [00:38:02] Right. Well, when James got cancer and when he. Before he died, he had offered for sale his library at his barber shop. And he was only asking $40,000. I mean, for the library. This was a minimal.

Chris Thomas [00:38:19] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [00:38:20] Modest amount to be asking, but I mean, James offered it to me, but at the time I'm, you know, $40,000, like, wow, you know, not even close, you know, so. So some man, I think, in Bountiful bought the collection, and the collection was split up at that point, and his papers went to the University of Utah Special Collections. And then different subject matters of the library got sold to different people. And that's why you could have ended up with one of the papers that had his stamp in it.

Chris Thomas [00:38:58] Right.

Sandra Tanner [00:38:59] But James was a mentor to gerald in his 1920, 21 year. Well, not so much 21. That's when we got married. But through his years of 18 and 19 and 20, James was a source for him on what to study, where to study, where he could find the books to study and suggest books for Gerald to read or study. So he was a big help in launching us into our research.

Chris Thomas [00:39:35] And was there any sort of connection between James Wardle and Pauline?

Sandra Tanner [00:39:42] Yes, James and Pauline.

Chris Thomas [00:39:44] Pauline Hancock.

Sandra Tanner [00:39:45] Pauline Hancock, who started the Little Church of Christ splinter group that we went into later. James and Pauline already were friends. Pauline's father, what was his last name? Bailey, I think it might have been. Her father was a reorganized pastor here in Salt Lake.

Chris Thomas [00:40:05] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:40:07] And so they had known each other years before. And so at the time we meet James, Pauline's folks are dead and she's an older person, middle aged person at this time. So. But she had gone. The family had moved back to Independence, Missouri, but James had stayed friends with Pauline. And the reorganized church went through some hard times. I don't remember time wise in the 30s or 40s. 1930s or 40s, not 18. And they had had some splinters, problems, people breaking away. And so James would have known and probably been aware of Pauline's dissatisfaction with the reorganized. And she went off into another splinter group before she and a bunch of friends started their own little church back in Independence, Missouri. And I believe Pauline even had James speak at her church a few times when he was back in Independence. So.

Chris Thomas [00:41:19] Sorry.

Sandra Tanner [00:41:19] No, go ahead.

Chris Thomas [00:41:20] So how did. How did James pull it off? I mean, he seems to have been a friend to. To everyone.

Sandra Tanner [00:41:28] Yes.

Chris Thomas [00:41:28] Right. In different segments of the Restoration.

Sandra Tanner [00:41:32] Yes.

Chris Thomas [00:41:33] He didn't seem to be off limits. In other words.

Sandra Tanner [00:41:36] No.

Chris Thomas [00:41:36] To anybody.

Sandra Tanner [00:41:37] No. He was on friends with both all 35 sides, if you want to include all the splinter groups. But everyone knew that James had his ear to the ground. He knew what was going on. He knew who was doing what in the different splinter groups.

Sandra Tanner [00:41:52] And so people would stop at his barber shop. It truly was a crossroads of the west that you could sit in James Wardle's barbershop and meet all kind of people that would wander in there. I was sitting there. Me and Gerald were sitting there one day. We had come in to look at some book in his library, and in walks ervil and Joel LeBaron.

Sandra Tanner [00:42:17] And that was interesting. Ervil LeBaron was very impressive to meet. He was the head of the group down in Mexico, and he was up in Salt Lake to try to find people that would be interested in joining the polygamist groups and kind of a missionary trip to Utah.

Sandra Tanner [00:42:44] But when he walked in James Wardle's shop, I thought this must be what it would have been like to have met Joseph Smith. He was this tall, somewhat attractive man, but there was a presence of power or vibe that came off of him, like someone important had walked in the room. I mean, you just were aware that someone of presence had walked in, which, obviously, if you want to be a good prophet these days, you got to have some kind of charisma, right? And Ervil had that. And yet he ends up being this murderous leader that starts. I mean, Joel that was with him. He has Joel killed later because of rivalries in the polygamous groups.

Sandra Tanner [00:43:33] He had his own daughter killed. So. So he becomes this very evil person. But when you met him, you wouldn't have thought that. Later, James organized for Gerald and I to go to meet Joel and Ervil. They had rented a building out on North Temple towards the airport.

Sandra Tanner [00:44:00] No signs, nothing to indicate what this brick building was. And we go at night, and it's all dark in the parking lot and all. And, you know, it's kind of like the, you know, knock three times and whisper low. It was one of those kind of deals where like, a speakeasy or something, you know? And so James takes us up and knocks on the door, and then we get admitted. And there's all kind of lights inside, but there weren't lights outside.

Sandra Tanner [00:44:24] So we go in and meet Ervil. He sat down and talked with us for a little while. It was just odd. Anyways, I met a lot of funny people at James Wardle's barbershop. But that was one of the more memorable people, one of the true prophets that I've known.

Chris Thomas [00:44:41] True Right.

Sandra Tanner [00:44:42] In quotes.

Encounters With Polygamist Prophets and Leaders

Chris Thomas [00:44:44] Well, since we're here, there's several of the LeBarons, isn't there?

Sandra Tanner [00:44:51] Yeah, well, yeah, there's Ross.

Chris Thomas [00:44:54] Just, just give us a quick kind of description of what we're, what we're looking at here.

Sandra Tanner [00:45:00] Well, there were these three brothers, Ervil, Joel and Ross, who all were supposed to have received special priesthood ordination from somebody that was ordained by President John Taylor back in 1887 or sometime or other to continue priesthood polygamy outside of the LDS Church, to keep the line of polygamy going until the church could come back to living it legally.

Sandra Tanner [00:45:34] And so many of the polygamist groups look to some kind of ordination of their leader going back several generations or whatever these days, you know, but. Well, my great great grandpa was ordained by so and so who was at the John Taylor meeting. And, you know, so you trace your authority down and so the LeBarons had the people that genealogy of who they got ordained by passed down to them. So they've each become head of different polygamous groups.

Sandra Tanner [00:46:07] Well, Joel gets killed, but so Ervil's got his group in Mexico. Ross. Ross was a funny guy. He used to come into James Wardle's barbershop all the time. So sometimes when we'd be down at looking up a reference at James and had come Ross. Ross was a real character. And he had a goat farm out in the west part of the valley, and he was trying to build a model flying saucer because he believed in flying saucer stuff. And he's a real character. And one day I was standing out on the sidewalk talking with him and a couple of other men, and they got into some discussion.

Sandra Tanner [00:46:49] I can't remember now what the topic was, but James, I mean, Ross is kind of like, well, what side did you want to defend? Because I'll take the other side. You know, I mean, he was just funny. He didn't take this prophet role as serious as his brothers, although he might have really believed in it, I don't know. But he was one that could joke about it all.

Chris Thomas [00:47:17] I kind of think of him as the William smith of the LeBaron family.

Sandra Tanner [00:47:22] Yeah, but he was a fun person to talk to. But then he had his followers that were ordained by him to be leaders. And so that would get you down to Robert Black and Fred Collier, who later became prophets on their own right of their own groups. And Robert Black ended up marrying LeBaron girl. And Fred has some sort of family compound up toward Hannah in Utah, which nobody's going to know where Hannah is but up in the mountains. So there's all the polygamous groups represent all these generational splinter groups that all break off for their own leadership or their own style or whatever. So everyone in all the polygamous groups seems to know everyone else, and they're all half cousins and, you know, as quite a mix.

Chris Thomas [00:48:24] Okay. To kind of close this loop just a little bit, what are you and Gerald doing at this clandestine meeting?

Sandra Tanner [00:48:32] Just talking to Ervil.

Chris Thomas [00:48:34] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:48:36] Just trying to get. Well, I think Ervil thought. Well, this would have been. Now that I think about it, this would have been when we still believed the Book of Mormon.

Chris Thomas [00:48:44] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [00:48:45] And so I think in Ervil's mind, he thought we were potential converts so that he would spend this private time with us that I think he was hoping to wow us with his priesthood authority and all and convince us that this was the direction we should follow.

Chris Thomas [00:49:04] Okay. And I'm. I'm just going to go with one other thing here. You were telling me a story about at the bookstore or your house, one, when the shop was there, a BYU student.

Sandra Tanner [00:49:23] Oh, yeah.

Chris Thomas [00:49:23] Getting recruited to a polygamist group outside your house or your bookshop. Tell us that story.

Sandra Tanner [00:49:35] Okay. So one day I have this BYU student come in who's going to try to give me all the big answers. And he was sure that he could get me to repent and come back to the true church. And he had the answers, so he was down to give it his best shot.

Sandra Tanner [00:49:56] Well, while we started to talk, in walks two other guys. Well, it turns out these are young polygamous guys that have stopped in the bookstore. I don't remember if they had come in to buy a book or what. Or maybe they were coming in to convert me too. That happens a lot. But anyways, so I have these two polygamists, former Mormon polygamous guys, and these are all guys in their 20s. And so the two guys come in and here's this true believing Mormon guy, and the three of them get in this big discussion of who's got the right priesthood authority. And they're going at it on quoting DNC Doctrine and Covenants and all this stuff back and forth.

Sandra Tanner [00:50:39] And I'm just sitting there watching this. These three guys all arguing of whether there should still be polygamy and who has the proper priesthood authority. And it went on and on and on. And some other people came in the store and then it was getting late and about time to close up and all. And so they, the three of them went outside onto the lawn. So this had to be in warm weather time.

Sandra Tanner [00:51:09] I don't remember. It didn't seem like it was a really hot day, but they took it out onto the lawn to finish their discussion, and they sat out there for the next couple of hours arguing, the three of them, over polygamous claims as opposed to standard LDS claims. Well, the upshot of this whole thing is, next thing I know, the BYU guys coming and telling me that he's joined the polygamist group. Really? We need to talk more, you know,

Chris Thomas [00:51:39] so maybe Ervil was right, but, you

Guest [00:51:42] know, oh, dear, let's move it in the wrong direction.

Sandra Tanner [00:51:48] But it's been a really funny life in that regard. Funny in the sense of the kinds of interactions and people that all have come through that store and had discussions, not necessarily with me, with each other.

Chris Thomas [00:52:03] We might as well finish up the the prophets you have known section of our conversation. Tell us about the Parowan prophet.

Sandra Tanner [00:52:12] Oh, okay. Oh, I've got his name written down there, don't I, Leland?

Chris Thomas [00:52:24] I believe so. Let me just double check here. No, I gotta put my glasses.

Sandra Tanner [00:52:34] Anyways, sorry. This man comes in to talk with me, and he has been in a plane wreck.

Chris Thomas [00:52:42] Leland Freeborn?

Sandra Tanner [00:52:44] Yeah, Leland Freeborn. He's on Wikipedia. And so he comes in to talk to me. He's been in this terrible plane wreck that he survived and lived through and was in a coma for a while. I can't remember how bad it all went, but it was a pretty bad airplane wreck.

Sandra Tanner [00:53:01] And coming out of all of this, healing from all of this, he claims to have visions and he's been called of God and he's got a message for the world and all. So he would come in and talk to me at different. Bought all our books.

Sandra Tanner [00:53:24] He said because of the accident, he was recovering at home and not working disability or whatever. And so he bought all of our different books. I mean, hundreds of dollars worth of books. And he sat there for the next year or two, recuperating, reading all these books. So then he becomes the prophet of God, and he started coming in regularly to try to convert me.

Sandra Tanner [00:53:50] Well, we got to be friends. And so he comes in this one day, so serious, and he says God shown him that the world's gonna end, like on Thanksgiving Day. I think it was sometime around Thanksgiving, might have been Thanksgiving itself. But anyways, because he just loved us and he wanted us to know and hopefully save us from Armageddon.

Guest [00:54:15] Around what year was this?

Sandra Tanner [00:54:18] Oh, what?

Guest [00:54:19] Okay, what decade was this?

Sandra Tanner [00:54:22] As in the 70s, maybe. All right, just one so, well, it being Wikipedia, you can find out when. When all of this accident and stuff happened. He built underground bunker. And of course the Mormons believe in your supply of food and water and all that stuff for the end time. And so he had his supplies, he had this whole underground bunker system evidently for all the storage and to be ready for the end time.

Sandra Tanner [00:54:58] And it always reminded me of the movie paint your wagon. And younger people aren't going to know this movie. But anyways, one of the funny scenes in the movie is this old mining town. These guys are mining all underneath the city and making all these tunnels till they finally get too many tunnels and the whole city falls down in the hole.

Sandra Tanner [00:55:19] And I always had this vision of Leland digging too far, his whole house falling in. Anyways, he came in to warn me and we had this little talk and I listened politely as he gave me the word of the Lord for about an hour.

Sandra Tanner [00:55:37] And when he got through, I thanked him for his concern for us. I said, but Leland, you got to make me a promise. The day after this date, I think you're still going to be here and I'm still going to be here. And I expect you to come back and talk to me about why it didn't happen.

Sandra Tanner [00:55:57] Okay, so we get past the date, nothing happened, and Leland doesn't come back. Okay, then you go a year before I see him again, and then he just comes sauntering in one day. Oh, how's it going, Leland? We need a little talk here about why that didn't happen. Oh, I counted wrong. I got that all figured out. Yeah, I started the wrong date and so, yeah, it's next December 24th or whatever the date was, you know. Okay, Leland, I want you to promise me when it doesn't happen that you'll come back and explain it to me. Oh, well, it's going to happen, you know, I got it.

Sandra Tanner [00:56:37] I got the date, you know. Well, of course it doesn't happen. So I don't see Leland for another year till he thinks I forgot about it, you know. So, yeah, that was my conversations with him. But he's written up in encyclopedia on Wikipedia. He was a very nice carrying man who had been terribly damaged in this airplane wreck and left him, for whatever reasons, convinced that God was speaking to him.

Chris Thomas [00:57:08] And Parowan is south Utah.

Sandra Tanner [00:57:12] Yeah, it's a few hours south of Salt Lake. But he became known as the Parowan prophet. Right.

Chris Thomas [00:57:22] And I'll be like Paul, who in Philippians promised to quit in chapter beginning of chapter three and wrote Two more chapters. Yeah, Right. Ogden Kraut.

Sandra Tanner [00:57:32] Ogden Kraut was an independent polygamist, and he became somewhat known in the public sphere back during the Adam Swapp trial thing. I don't remember what year Adam Swapp was in, but there was this family up in. Was it the Heber area? Do you remember this? I can't remember now, but this family that was homeschooling and there was some sort of big brouha about they got to put their kids in public school. And I may have some of the facts wrong, but anyways, this family was at odds with the city over the way they were raising their kids. And it seems to me it was over what they were doing in the home and public, not putting their kids in public school or something. So there was a big standoff, and they swap brothers.

Guest [00:58:27] Says Marion. You. Marion, Utah.

Sandra Tanner [00:58:30] Yeah. So who knows where Marion is? And the swap boys went up there to try to help this family that was on the standoff with the city. And as it all turns out, one of the SWAT boys ends up fatally shooting a police officer.

Sandra Tanner [00:58:57] And so he got put in jail for murder. And it was a very. The whole thing was very sad. But Ogden Kraut was called in during this standoff to see if he could negotiate some sort of surrender from these people so it could end peacefully. And Ogden was called in because of being an independent polygamist. He was respected by the different polygamous groups as someone who didn't take sides that they could all be friends with or acquaintances with. Anyways, Ogden did a lot of research on early Mormon stuff because he's looking. Trying to prove Brigham Young's polygamy and his doctrine of Adam God and these things.

Sandra Tanner [00:59:40] Gerald had got to know Ogden Kraut because they both were looking into polygamy and Adam God and the different teachings of Brigham Young. They had got to be sort of friends through their research. But Ogden's bigger notoriety came from this Adam Swapp thing of him trying to negotiate a peaceful end. And unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. One of the interesting things that came out of that is Adam Swapp, who was one of the brothers, came out of prison later and became an evangelical Christian and went to theological training and is now a pastor.

Chris Thomas [01:00:22] Really?

Sandra Tanner [01:00:23] Yes. It's just an amazing story. He was a polygamist, had, I think, at least two wives. The first wife divorced him, as I recall, and he is married legally now to the. I think it's the second wife. And they're just lovely people, very sweet. But They've been through and years of prison, at least 20 years, I think that Adam had to be in prison.

Chris Thomas [01:00:50] So Ogden Kraut is married to Anne and Wild.

Sandra Tanner [01:00:56] Yeah.

Guest [01:00:57] That was my very first video interview on Mormon stories. The. The very first person I ever did a video interview of was Ann Wilde.

Sandra Tanner [01:01:04] Yeah.

Guest [01:01:04] And it blew me away because man was. Well, it says in Wikipedia that Ogden Kraut served in the. In the mission of Bruce Armor Conkie. Dad. So he was a missionary to Bruce Armor Conkey. Dad goes on, you know, to become a fundamentalist.

Sandra Tanner [01:01:21] Yeah.

Guest [01:01:22] And. And it was so interesting to hear Anne's story because she couldn't. Started believing in polygamy and then she like divorced her LDS husband because she wanted to live the law of polygamy. And so she marries Ogden because he was willing to live the law.

Sandra Tanner [01:01:38] Yes.

Guest [01:01:39] And she went on to be like his assistant in all the books that he published.

Sandra Tanner [01:01:42] Yeah.

Guest [01:01:43] So he's. And I think he really got under Bruce Armaconke's skin and a lot of those that, that temple question about like affiliating with. With kind of like apostate groups.

Sandra Tanner [01:01:53] Yes.

Guest [01:01:54] I think that at least, you know, aimed at him. Yeah, partly aimed at him. Right.

Sandra Tanner [01:02:00] Yes.

Guest [01:02:00] Because he would have been recruiting through his books, he would have been recruiting Mormons into fundamentalism. Am I right?

Sandra Tanner [01:02:06] That's right. Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:02:07] And he and Gerald. Am I right in thinking that they had a rather long term kind of relationship in terms of.

Sandra Tanner [01:02:18] Yeah, for quite a few years. They would get together on occasion and share research notes. Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:02:25] What was that dynamic like?

Sandra Tanner [01:02:29] Well, they could separate their beliefs from historical discussion. And so it was not.

Chris Thomas [01:02:38] That's a very novel idea in some circles.

Sandra Tanner [01:02:41] Right. So he could talk about these things unemotionally because they were just going over historical data up. When did Joseph. When did Brigham Young teach this? How many sermons did he give on this? Where was it published? Who else knew about it? You know, all academic kind of discussions about these things. Although they each had very firm convictions for their points of view, they could set that aside and just look at historical documents to try to figure out. To document what Brigham Young taught.

Chris Thomas [01:03:17] So it doesn't sound like James Wardle was the only crossroads of the west, you know.

Sandra Tanner [01:03:22] Well, everybody knew that they could visit James Wardle. I don't know that everyone knew they could visit with Ogden Kraut, but.

Chris Thomas [01:03:31] Right. Oh, yeah, right.

Guest [01:03:33] Oh, it says that he published like 85 books with Ann Wilde. Like they were really prolific together.

Sandra Tanner [01:03:39] Oh, yeah. And one of that's a lot of books. One of the books was one on Adam God and he's got one on

Guest [01:03:47] the one mighty and strong doctrine. So I mean like kind of a precursor to Denver Snuffer but without the Denver stuffer, without the polygamy, of course.

Sandra Tanner [01:03:55] Yeah, right. Yes.

Guest [01:03:57] Yeah.

Lamar Peterson and Early Mormon Text Criticism

Chris Thomas [01:03:58] Well, let's talk about Lamar Peterson. Have an image of him as well. I know there's one in the biography.

Sandra Tanner [01:04:09] Yes, Lamar's father was Scandinavian and was the translator for the church back in the, what would it have been, 40s? I'm not sure when his dad died, but. So Lamar grew up visiting the church office buildings all the time and was on a first name basis with many of the general authorities because his dad had an office up there. I don't know if it was in the little granite office building on South Temple or not, but he was up in that office building frequently.

Sandra Tanner [01:04:52] And it seems to me that Lamar said his dad's office was in that building somewhere. Could have been in the basement, I mean, I don't know. But he was. He had a. Lamar had occasion as a young man to hobnob with the different general authorities because of his dad's position as a translator for the church.

Sandra Tanner [01:05:13] And Lamar became very proficient on the piano and the organ and was a well known teacher here in the valley for those things. I mean he could command a good sum to study under him because he was known for his skills.

Sandra Tanner [01:05:34] In fact, Amar told us that he would have had a chance to have been the church organist because they were looking for another one. This would have been when, oh, what was the old guy's name that used to play the organ?

Sandra Tanner [01:05:55] Anyways, he was going to retire and they were going to be looking for a new organist and Lamar said the job would have been his but he had to sit down and count the cost. By this time Lamar as a middle aged man knew that he didn't believe Mormonism and did not feel he could take the job and play the role of a believing Mormon to have that job, of course, I mean it's a plum job for an organist to be able to be the guy hired to play that organ and he had to turn it down. But he suggested that they take his pupil. And so the next organist was a pupil that Lamar had trained.

Chris Thomas [01:06:41] And. And where did you meet Lamar?

Sandra Tanner [01:06:43] Well, that was in, in 1957, back in the dark ages. Lamar wrote a little pamphlet called Problems in Mormon Text. Little gold pamphlet and Problems in Mormon Text talked about the changes in the Revelations, changes in the Book of Mormon. I can't Remember now, David Whitmer stuff, problems in priesthood restoration. But he had all these little things covered in this little pamphlet. And James Wardle had copies of Lamar's little booklet at his barber shop.

Chris Thomas [01:07:28] Back to James Wardle.

Sandra Tanner [01:07:29] Back to James Wardle. And also Weller's Bookstore had Lamar Peterson's little pamphlet. Now, when you talk about the Weller's Bookstore way back in that time period, it's still going on today, but changed from the grandpa to the son to the grandson as the people that were running it. But Weller's Bookstore had back in under the stairwell behind. So when you walk in the store, you're looking at the staircase to go up to the second floor. Behind that, on the backside of the stairwell was a special stack of shelves that had all the polygamous ex Mormon kinds of material back there, where if you walked in the store as a believing Mormon, you wouldn't be hit with apostate literature.

Sandra Tanner [01:08:24] And so everyone soon learned that if you wanted to find the juicy stuff today, you had to go behind the shelf behind the bookcase to the other side to where you. The stairwell, I mean, and you see this bookcase on the backside that would have all this kind of stuff. Then the Mars pamphlet was there. Oh, by the way, back in the 50s, they didn't keep Von Brody's book on the shelf at Weller's. It was always under the counter. And they would slide it in a brown paper bag for you or whatever so that it wouldn't show what you were buying because it was so scandalous.

Sandra Tanner [01:09:02] Scandalous. Oh, yes. You would not want anyone for fear your neighbor might see that you bought Fawn Brody's book. So that. But that wasn't the only reason. They also kept it under there because it kept being stolen. And so there would be these Mormons trying to help God out by stealing the book. So you didn't buy apostate literature.

Sandra Tanner [01:09:25] So they just had it under the counter and you come in and ask for it, and they would slide it in there anyways. They had Lamar's pamphlet and James Wardle had Lamar's pamphlet. And so somehow my mom and my aunt and my grandma got hold of Lamar's pamphlet.

Sandra Tanner [01:09:48] And when I called my mom infamously and told her that Gerald and I were engaged, she caught the next plane up here with my Aunt Lucille. And while they were here, one of the things they wanted to do was to go down and meet Lamar Peterson.

Sandra Tanner [01:10:07] And so he had a music studio, I think it was on Main street south of zcmi. Somewhere along there. And so we went over to meet Lamar at his music studio. We also went down to James Wardle's barbershop. But that's when I first. Well, and Gerald. That's the first time we met Lamar Peterson. And Lamar became a mentor to us.

Sandra Tanner [01:10:37] This one, we still believe the book Mormon. And Lamar had. Well, first he had a home on the avenues, and then he moved over to the east side up above Highland Drive. And we would go over there. So many evenings of poor family probably got tired of seeing us. But Lamar would take us into his music room, and then he would mentor us with, well, here's another book you should read. I think this would be really good for you in broadening your understanding of the Book of Mormon. And so he modeled to us a kind of respectful way of talking to people that was not belittling.

Sandra Tanner [01:11:25] I mean, we're just two dumb kids, you know, who take us serious. And he was so kind and respectful of us. He never. We would ask stupid questions about, well, couldn't this make the Book of Mormon true? And he didn't laugh at us or anything. He would say, well, that's something to think about. Here's another way to look at it, you know, and he'd point us to different books. So Lamar was really responsible for us getting to the point of looking more seriously at the historical underpinnings of the Book of Mormon. Very kindly, never ridiculing, always helpful.

Sandra Tanner [01:12:07] And that meant so much to us that he took us serious because, I mean, we were nobody, and everybody treated us like nobodies. So, I mean, we'd go ask questions at church and that. And, you know, oh, well, you know, you could tell by the demeanor of different Mormons that would talk to us that they didn't take us serious.

Sandra Tanner [01:12:31] But Lamar was very kind about this all. And I've talked to so many people since then. I thought, oh, this must have been what Lamar was dealing with when he was trying to explain to us. No, that won't really work. Like Gerald trying to figure out how the Nephites could have read the bible because the King James, because it has so much King James in it, they had to have read it, and Lamar would try to talk to us. I don't think that would really work.

Sandra Tanner [01:13:03] So Gerald's big save for the Book of Mormon was, well, God had just had to have revealed to the Nephites the King James Bible, and they had to be able to read it and understand it in King James.

Sandra Tanner [01:13:17] And that's how it ends up on the plates to get translated into the book. And lamar is very kindly trying to talk to us. Translation doesn't really work that way.

Chris Thomas [01:13:29] So was it james or lamar that gave you access to lamb? And maybe just say a little bit about lamb and what, that the gold bible Was that for the golden Bible?

Sandra Tanner [01:13:44] Yes, in 18 oh, 1887, somewhere in that. 89, I don't remember. MT. Lamb was a minister here in salt lake, and he gave a series of lectures on why he couldn't accept the book of mormon as a historical document. And it was so popular that all the people begged him to put it into a book form. And so it was published, the golden bible by mt. Lamb.

Chris Thomas [01:14:14] And,

Sandra Tanner [01:14:18] well, now that you bring out, which one would have given us the book, would it have been lamar or james? Well, the fact that he gave us the book, it had to be lamar, I'm assuming, because I don't remember james giving us much. He did give us some little pamphlets, some things that he had double or triple copies of. But james was responsible for giving gerald david whitmer's pamphlet, an address to all believers in christ.

Sandra Tanner [01:14:46] And so it was probably lamar that gave us lamb's book. And at this point. So this would be in the early 60s. Gerald already was struggling with the book of mormon at that time because of all the king james stuff and various other problems with the book of mormon being historical.

Sandra Tanner [01:15:09] But reading lamb and I read lamb, it was very hard to get through his book because he has sort of little witticisms along the way that would. For a true believer to read it, it's kind of like twisting the knife, you know?

Sandra Tanner [01:15:27] You know, he'd make some little cute statement about something aside of some sort, and I think, oh, wow, you know, did you have to bring that, Throw that in? I persevered. I was going to read the whole book.

Sandra Tanner [01:15:40] And so a lot of problems were brought up along the way. You know, plagiarisms and anachronisms. How do you have all this old testament, new testament stuff amongst the american indians when there's no evidence the american indians ever had any concepts like these? Looking at the anthem transcript of supposed to be a book of mormon text in comparison to mayan writing and seeing no similarities, and a number of things like this, any one of which should have been enough to have given us very major questions about the book of mormon. But one of the things that stayed in my mind and troubled me was when he was talking about jewish customs in the new testament, in the jewish customs in the book of mormon, from old testament times, because the book of Mormon makes this specific claim that they were keeping the law of Moses, which would have been very regulated.

Sandra Tanner [01:16:47] The old testament gives all kind of regulations that went with keeping the law. So one would think that these great men of God that left Jerusalem to come over here would have been proficient in the law of Moses. I mean, they were so holy that God saved them out of the time of the destruction of Jerusalem to bring them to America. So one would think they'd be really up on all this stuff.

Sandra Tanner [01:17:18] And yet they don't seem to know how to live the law of Moses. And they don't do things right according to the law of Moses. So one of the things he brings up in the book is that the book of Mormon talks about when they keep the law of Moses, that they from their firstlings of their flock, they would give their fast offerings, their.

Sandra Tanner [01:17:44] Well, what was it? Sin offerings, gift offering, love offerings, and stuff from the firstling of the flock. And lamb points out, well, a good Jew wouldn't have done that because the first of the flock always belonged to God and personal sacrifices that you would take to the temple would have to come from the other part of your flock.

Sandra Tanner [01:18:07] And that just hit me. I sat there thinking about that, that, well, of course, if this was real time and these really were Jewish people in Jerusalem, they would have known the law of Moses. They wouldn't have made this mistake.

Sandra Tanner [01:18:24] And that was kind of like the final straw for me in believing the book of Mormon. And that makes it sound so simple. But it wasn't. I had been through reading a lot of material up till then, struggling with how to reconcile all these problems in the book of Mormon. This was just the last straw. It was the one I thought, no, this gives it away. This is a protestant in modern times writing what he would understand of the law of Moses, not someone that really lived it religiously.

Chris Thomas [01:18:59] Yeah. Let me ask you just one more question about Lamar. How unusual was it for someone of his location to write a pamphlet about the problem of texts?

Sandra Tanner [01:19:18] Well, it was very unusual. I mean, he had read Brody, but yeah, it doesn't put you on the church's top favorite list. And I assume by this point he decided not to be church organist. I'm not sure at what time period that was in the wind, but Lamar was a very gifted musician. And I'm sure it had to be a great struggle to figure out how much do I be honest to myself and before God to turn down the job of the century for me to take this is the job everyone trained to get. If you're going to be an organist, where do you go?

Sandra Tanner [01:20:09] You go to the Tabernacle Choir around here. That is the plum job. And to turn that down must have been a very hard thing. Interesting side note to that. He became the organist for the Church of Science up in Down. They were on Main Street Christian Science, and he played for I don't know how many years as their organist. And they asked him a number of times how come he hadn't become persuaded to join the Christian Scientists because he was their organist for like 20 years or something.

Sandra Tanner [01:20:45] And he says, well, when you guys quit wearing prescription glasses and take down the pedestrian warning sign to cross the street in front of your church, I might take you a little more serious. You'd have to know something about Christian Science to realize how funny that is. But it was like the ultimate power of positive thinking that you can't let yourself think that those things are disease can't be real. It's a failure of your belief system or something.

Chris Thomas [01:21:24] And did I hear correctly, and it may have been in a previous conversation with you, that Peterson had a granddaughter who became a Wycliffe translator?

Sandra Tanner [01:21:38] Yes, his granddaughter Michelle. She's a lovely person, and she left Mormonism and went to college and trained to become a translator. And she became lifelong part of the Wycliffe Bible Translating Society and has been in Africa for years. She's here in the States now and she's been very involved in trying to set up media things for taking to African villages to help them be informed and to do drama, tell stories, Bible stories or other kind of drama stories to help people who have no knowledge of the Bible and can't really read it well because of the language barrier and stuff. To be able to become familiar with the different Bible stories and embrace Christianity, embrace in a way that they could understand it.

Sandra Tanner [01:22:51] So Michelle has been just a beautiful Christian person giving of her life to this. Never married and just been giving of herself all these years. But she talked to her grandpa at different times about God and why she chose this path.

Sandra Tanner [01:23:14] And she wasn't throwing away her life. This was something that God had called her to, and she felt great joy in it. And she feels that in Lamar's closing years in life that she had many conversations with him, that she felt that he had come to embrace Christianity. He had been agnostic for many years, but he came to love Christ. And she has great peace that Lamar died loving Jesus.

Chris Thomas [01:23:53] Oh, that's a wonderful story. Sandra, let me ask you about one Other person that you met at James Wardle's. I didn't know James would be the spine of this part of our conversation. Reuben Kirkham.

Other Memorable Figures From Wardle's Circle

Sandra Tanner [01:24:10] No, you got the name wrong.

Chris Thomas [01:24:10] Oh, no, that's the artist.

Sandra Tanner [01:24:12] Francis.

Chris Thomas [01:24:13] Francis Kirkham.

Sandra Tanner [01:24:14] Yes. Okay. Francis Kirkham, back in the 50s and early 60s, was very burdened to put out some good information to help future students of Mormonism not struggle and give up the Book of Mormon. And so he went back and did a very serious study trying to go through, like, Brody's kinds of arguments, the things that would have been thrown up against the Book of Mormon and early Mormonism at that time.

Sandra Tanner [01:24:52] So this was instrumental in Gerald's search to read Kirkham's research. A New Witness for Christ in America, I think, is the way the title goes, because it was a very good intellectual writer trying to seriously give answers for the problems a young person would encounter at that time, trying to deal with the Book of Mormon's historicity or Joseph Smith's call.

Sandra Tanner [01:25:20] So Gerald had read his volume one. I don't think he had read volume two. It might not have been out yet, but. So he was an important prop for Gerald to prop up his testimony in reading Kirkham. It also became the foundation of where to go to research why Kirkham's answers won't hold up.

Sandra Tanner [01:25:47] But we were sitting in James wardle's barbershop, and Mr. Kirkham comes into the bookstore, and so this is in the early 60s. And he comes, oh, to James, you know, hey, have you heard about this young couple? I don't know. They're putting out all these little mimeograph papers, and they're taking on the church on all these subjects. And. Yeah, you heard about them. And James is playing them on. Oh, really? Yes. Yeah. Okay, well, tell me more about these people.

Sandra Tanner [01:26:23] And of course, we're sitting right there for this whole thing. And so he's leading him on to get him to talk more about this young couple that, wow, you know, have they ever come in here? You know, I mean. And finally James says, well, would you like to meet them sometime? I. Exactly his words. And he says, oh, yeah, yeah, I'd love to talk to them. Well, let me introduce you to. This is Gerald Tanner and his wife, Sandra Tanner, through this whole conversation. And James thought that was so funny to string him on that.

Sandra Tanner [01:26:59] And Mr. Kirkham was just graciousness himself. He was a very lovely man. And he invited us to his house for dinner and. Well, sure, okay. So we went over to his place. Well, it might have been Lunch. I can't remember now if it was lunch or dinner, but as I recall, his wife wasn't there, and he's fixed a spaghetti dinner.

Sandra Tanner [01:27:33] And he said my wife would be horrified that I didn't lay out the kitchen table right? And with all the niceties of proper hostess form. And so he said, I'm just gonna put some plates out here, and here's the bowl, and, you know, help yourself kind of thing. Just real folksy of him. Real nice guy.

Sandra Tanner [01:27:54] So anyways, he gave us a volume two of his books and inscribed it to us, which I still have in my library, to my newfound friends in the Book of Mormon, Francis Kirkham. So he was very nice guy. However, Gerald did not find his arguments could ultimately surmount the problems of the Book of Mormon. And the more we looked into things, it just more and more became problematic to hold on to it. So that by the fall of 62, we finally hit the last straw, where we both gave up the Book of Mormon within probably a couple of weeks of each other. Gerald gave it up before me.

Sandra Tanner [01:28:48] I didn't know that. He didn't tell me at the time when he gave it up. But he came home from work one day and he says, oh, I got to tell you about a discussion I had with some guys at work.

Sandra Tanner [01:28:59] Okay. So he says, yeah, these guys, they knew that I read the Book of Mormon sometimes during lunch break, and they hadn't seen me reading it lately. So they came and asked me, we know you're some kind of Mormon, but we can't figure out what you're doing.

Sandra Tanner [01:29:15] You got that Book of Mormon sometimes, but now we don't see you with the Book of Mormon. So what's going on? And Gerald says, so I had to tell them, I don't believe the Book of Mormon anymore, and you won't be seeing me reading it on lunch break.

Sandra Tanner [01:29:29] And so he's telling me this over the table. It wasn't dinner time. It was late at night when Gerald had a swing shift. And so he says, oh, I don't believe it anymore. And I said, oh, well, thank God for that, because I don't believe it anymore either.

Sandra Tanner [01:29:50] And so we both came to the same conclusion, but separately, we'd done research together. But the closer you get to losing your faith in something, we found that the less we talked to each other about it, because you don't know where the other one's at yet, and are you struggling beyond them. So we didn't want to bring it up to each other till we were sure. We both were on the same page.

Chris Thomas [01:30:15] Well, you know, one of the amazing things to me is that most all the people we've talked about, you met at James Wardles.

Sandra Tanner [01:30:24] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:30:25] You know, from these polygamous prophets.

Sandra Tanner [01:30:29] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:30:29] To LDS folk in good standing.

Sandra Tanner [01:30:32] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:30:33] You know, to. To all kind of folk.

Sandra Tanner [01:30:36] Right.

Chris Thomas [01:30:38] And that's a. That's a testimony in lots of ways to James Wardle.

Sandra Tanner [01:30:44] Yes.

Chris Thomas [01:30:45] Right.

Sandra Tanner [01:30:46] Yes. Well, like he said, he was the world's greatest secret spreader. You don't tell him anything you don't want other people to know because he spread the word. He had a little box, a little glass box in the window of his barber shop where he had all our newsletters and some of our books in there, all just laying flat but stacked up in this little box right where you saw it when you walked down the sidewalk for his store. And that's how a lot of people found out about us.

Chris Thomas [01:31:14] Wow.

Sandra Tanner [01:31:15] Was from the James subtle advertisement of just having our stuff in this glass box at the front of his barbershop.

Journalists Who Covered Mormon History

Chris Thomas [01:31:23] Well, Sandra, we've been at it a while, and I'm trying to look for a place to land the plane, as John suggested. Our eyes are way too big for our stomachs on this interview. So before we take a break, or I want to. I want to jump way ahead onto something I thought we would. Would kind of end with. But this might be a good place to do this, as I've read your story and. And heard your story.

Sandra Tanner [01:31:59] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:32:00] You know, in our many late night conversations, one of the things that has struck me is the role that specific people in media have played in your life, which was not anything that you designed.

Sandra Tanner [01:32:22] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:32:24] And those three folk are Wallace Turner and Peggy Fletcher Stack and John Dehlin. And in some ways, Turner and Delin will act as though in John 9, where the disciples are talking about the blind man like he's not there. We'll talk about John like he's not here. One of the things that struck me was that in lots of ways, Turner and Dehlin frame a really important stretch of your lives and ministry.

Sandra Tanner [01:33:06] Right.

Chris Thomas [01:33:07] And they. Each of them are not necessarily doing that initially, at any rate, with any agenda to help out the Tanner. No, I mean, it's you. It seems to me, as I process things as a believing Christian, that there's something providential about all that.

Sandra Tanner [01:33:36] Right.

Chris Thomas [01:33:36] And so to kind of. To kind of close out this section. At any rate, let's. Let's talk a little bit about each of them. Tell us who Wallace Turner was. How all that happened and what came out of that interaction.

Sandra Tanner [01:33:55] Well, he wrote for the Associated Press, but he was the religion editor, as I recall, for. Might have been the Washington Times. I'm not sure, but. Or New York Times. Might have been the New York Times. I'm not sure, but anyways, he was a big reporter and in charge of the religion department.

Sandra Tanner [01:34:23] And he came to Salt Lake to cover a story on the Mormons. And he came down to see us this one day. I mean, this was just unplanned to stop in to see how and talk to us. See what our little bookstore. This is in the front room of our house, you know, in our little bookstore when it was at home. And so he comes down and he sits down and we're talking, and this young man comes in and, boy, I'm bad on this story. But this young man comes in and he had been looking into.

Sandra Tanner [01:35:07] Was it first vision stuff. And he had a story that he'd been up to the church historian's office to see some document, and the church had told him they couldn't show it to him because it hadn't been microfilmed yet. So he came down to talk to us about this, and Gerald says, well, just a minute. And he goes out and gets some article where it says that the church had already microfilmed this document.

Sandra Tanner [01:35:37] And so this was so shattering to this young man to realize that he had just been in the church historian's office and they had lied to him. They couldn't show the document because it hadn't been microfilmed. And here's Gerald's got an article where they're using this document saying it has been microfilmed. And so this guy, he's rambling on about, well, I can still get out of it. I can still get out of it. And we're like, what are we getting out of? You know, he said, well, he had just gotten married to this Mormon woman in the temple, but they hadn't consummated their marriage yet. And I don't know why he was at our house.

Chris Thomas [01:36:15] Right,

Guest [01:36:18] good.

Chris Thomas [01:36:18] Good question.

Sandra Tanner [01:36:19] Just after he got married, and here he is and this New York Times reporter sitting there watching this, where this kid's having a faith crisis and falling apart, that he could get out of this marriage, but because they didn't consummate it and the church had lied to him, and he goes storming out. And so Wallace Turner is trying to process all of this, and we're talking, and so somebody else comes into the bookstore, and this a Polygamous guy.

Sandra Tanner [01:36:47] And so then we have this big discussion with this polygamous person. And, I mean, Turner must have thought this was the craziest outfit ever come across. You know, it just. I mean, all our days weren't that exciting, but it was just. We've had a number of funny times when days have just gone like this, when all kind of people we never thought would be stopping in stopped in. Well, like two Mormon guys with the polygamists with the Mormon guy ending up converting him to polygamy. So we have days like this. They're not all like that. But anyway, so here we are with this New York Times reporter.

Sandra Tanner [01:37:28] So because of this funny interchange we all had, we became part of his book, the Mormon establishment. And that put us on the map because he tells about us in there. And here's this young couple and down on West Temple are cranking out all these documents, you know, and suddenly we got all kind of people wanting to come and talk to us. So it was really the launching of the Tanner name and research being spread across the country where all kind of people knew about us then that had never even heard of us before that time. So Wallace really launched us into the public.

Chris Thomas [01:38:16] So this happens, and you're not smart enough to set all this up.

Sandra Tanner [01:38:20] No.

Chris Thomas [01:38:20] It just happens to you?

Sandra Tanner [01:38:22] Yes.

Chris Thomas [01:38:22] Right. The right day at the right time, he turns up, right?

Sandra Tanner [01:38:28] Well, yeah. And it's kind of the same way with John De Lynn.

Chris Thomas [01:38:31] Well, let's don't go to John just yet. Let's go to. Because in some ways, Peggy Fletcher Stack, she's been more constant in some ways, is that right?

Sandra Tanner [01:38:43] Well, she's been a reporter with the Salt Lake Tribune through decades and has reported on all sorts of things. And so we pop up in some of her stories. And she was never one of our biggest fans, but she was fair generally with when we do pop up. But she's been an important factor in Utah for her reporting on Mormon issues.

Chris Thomas [01:39:16] Now, have you had kind of personal interaction with her? Does she call you for certain things, or is all this from the outside?

Sandra Tanner [01:39:25] It's from the outside.

Chris Thomas [01:39:26] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [01:39:26] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:39:27] Very good.

Sandra Tanner [01:39:27] I have talked to her a couple of times personally, but we both ended up at a. I can't remember what the situation was. It was some sort of a food drive or something for homeless refugees, some program for the refugees that we both ended up at. And she says, well, I'm surprised to see you here. And I says, well, mutual. I'm surprised to run into you here,

Guest [01:39:54] you know, so I'm curious, Sander, why do you think? You know, Peggy certainly has certain sources that she relies on quite frequently over, especially over the past 10 years, that I've been kind of paying attention to her. You've been one of the most important and authoritative voices on Mormonism since, I don't know, the 60s. Why do you think it is that Peggy hasn't used you as a continual source for her articles and developed a relationship with you? Do you have a theory on that?

Sandra Tanner [01:40:23] Yes, because years ago this would be. Oh, why? Maybe in the 70s. I can't remember how long ago this was. They had a. Back then they had a BH Roberts History association or something, and they would. Before Sunstone and Mormon history and that sort of stuff, there was a B H Roberts history thing that would meet yearly. And at one of these meetings, She made a comment about us that we had. She had been informed on good authority that we had taken material from the church archives and we felt it was, well, in a sense, character assassination. And we went up afterwards to challenge her on her comment that what evidence do you have that we ever took anything from the historian's office? And her response was, I have it on the best authority that that is the case. And so what?

Guest [01:41:39] So she used hearsay to report things.

Sandra Tanner [01:41:41] Not here. Well, yeah, in the sense hearsay, but someone in the church historian's office, I'm assuming, had told her they felt that we had taken a microfilm and had you? We did not.

Guest [01:41:55] No, but she believed it because someone told her.

Sandra Tanner [01:41:59] She believed it because someone, the person that told her, evidently believed that it came about because someone else had taken a microfilm from the church historian's office of a document that they weren't publicly sharing. And Gerald convinced the person that the film ought to be given back to the church. And Gerald sent it back to the church on behalf of this person who didn't want his name to be used. And because he returned the film with a letter explaining why he was turning it back in, the people in the church historian's office felt that he must have been the one that took it, and he hadn't been. But she accepted this historian's word that Gerald had been responsible for taking it. So there was no changing her mind at that point. And so ever since then, she has had a negative, as far as I can tell, a negative opinion of us or of Gerald.

Chris Thomas [01:43:05] Well, let's. Let's move to where you were headed when I cut you off, and let's act like John's not in the room, okay? Yeah. The other just monumental thing to happen was your appearance on Mormon Stories.

Sandra Continuing Gerald's Work After His Death

Sandra Tanner [01:43:25] Yes. And back in 2014. So it now been a number of years since Gerald had died. He had died in 2006, and I had continued on with the newsletter and the bookstore. And initially, when Gerald was sick and couldn't work on anything anymore, I had completed a couple things that. That he had started on, but I put together one little book.

Sandra Tanner [01:43:58] 41 unique teachings of the LDS Church. But I didn't do much book writing after Gerald died. I was doing newsletters. I did the newsletters for 20 years, all on my own, my staff, but I mean, without Gerald. And so here comes this odd request from this guy I don't know anything about.

Sandra Tanner [01:44:27] I mean, I was never technically savvy, Right. I just bought a house that was a smart house, and I told them they had to take out all the smart stuff. I wanted to just be able to turn on the light switches. I didn't want to have to say, siri, turn on the lights in the front room. And so

Chris Thomas [01:44:51] you wanted a dumb house.

Sandra Tanner [01:44:52] I needed a dumb house, yes. Well, that's kind of the story of my life. So I'm not technically smart, and I know how to turn on my computer, but I get a little challenge. We get past that. So podcasts are becoming a thing, and I'm. I'm just catching up, even trying to figure out how you find them and what they are. And I've heard rumors about all this stuff, and I watched a few things, but I'm kind of like a babe in the woods with all this kind of thing.

Sandra Tanner [01:45:26] And I get John de Lin wanting to know if I would agree to be interviewed. Hmm. I'm trying to think, John Delinquent. Why does he want to talk to me? And where would the conversation go? What's the real purpose behind this?

Sandra Tanner [01:45:50] And so I wasn't sure if he's really a friend, you know, or is it someone that's going to try to make me look uneducated. And because I'm used to that, a lot of educated people. I shouldn't say a lot. Some educated people don't view me as worthy of the same respect of someone that's gone to college.

Sandra Tanner [01:46:26] And, I mean, here's Dr. Dehlin, psychology PhD. Yeah. And so what's his agenda gonna be? You know, I. I'm not anxious to be made to look any dumber than I am, you know, so.

Guest [01:46:43] So I'm sounding like a monster here.

Chris Thomas [01:46:45] Yeah, well, you're supposed to be behind the curtains, right?

Guest [01:46:47] Now.

Sandra Tanner [01:46:49] And so I'm praying about this. God, is this some sort of a entertainment idea that. Where he's going to show that, yeah, everyone's putting her forward as this big expert. She really doesn't know all that stuff, you know? And so I really weighed whether to do the interview, and I finally felt, well, it is what it is. I am what I am. And so. Okay, he wants to talk about our research and our lives. I got nothing to hide, and I'm not trying to pretend I got any big education or anything. So I finally said yes hesitantly. Okay, I'll get into it. Interviewed and fools rush in. I had no idea this was going to end up being, what, five hours?

Chris Thomas [01:47:39] Oh, that was just the start.

Sandra Tanner [01:47:42] And wow. You know. Okay, so by 2014, I was less of a household name than I had been in years before. When Gerald was still alive, we were pretty notorious. And so I had become much less in the public eye. And that. Wow. Well, John Dehlind didn't know it, but he was gonna relaunch my career, and suddenly I have international fame as having been on John Delezid's show. And the worst comment I got on that was, couldn't you do those a little shorter?

Chris Thomas [01:48:30] You once told me that being on Mormon Stories was the best thing that had happened to you.

Sandra Tanner [01:48:39] Yes.

Chris Thomas [01:48:40] In these recent years.

Sandra Tanner [01:48:42] Yeah. Since Gerald died. It was the major resurrection of public exposure and outreach to the world through the medium of tv, podcasts.

Chris Thomas [01:48:56] And it wasn't like this was a setup.

Sandra Tanner [01:49:01] No.

Chris Thomas [01:49:02] Designed to help you. This was.

Sandra Tanner [01:49:06] He wasn't trying to necessarily make me a household name.

Chris Thomas [01:49:09] The agenda was a Mormon Stories episode with someone who's notorious that others wouldn't talk to.

Sandra Tanner [01:49:19] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:49:20] And it exploded in a really good way.

Sandra Tanner [01:49:24] Yes, it did. And I don't know. What number am I? 100 and something or other. So he had done a lot of them before I came along. Of course, he's, what. Quadrupled that or whatever it is since then. But, yeah, it. It turned out to be a monumentally important interview. And if it hadn't been for that interview, I probably would have retired within a few years of that time. So I've kept going because I become infamous through my association with John.

Chris Thomas [01:50:04] You may speak now, John.

Guest [01:50:07] I'm so confused. So people can accuse me of all sorts of things, but I have always felt like I've had deep respect for the people whose shoulders I stand on. Like, when I started Mormon Stories, I immediately went to this, you know, Maxine Hanks and Paul Toscano and And, and any of the September six I can find. And I went to Grant Palmer and, you know, Michael Quinn. Like, I feel like I've always had deep reverence and respect for all the people who, who helped me figure things out.

Sandra Tanner [01:50:42] And those are also all educated people.

Guest [01:50:45] Well, I, first of all, I didn't have. I had not completed my PhD by the time I interviewed you because I didn't get that till 2015. But I don't even think of myself. Like, I did the psychology thing just to get a clinical training. Not. I've never been like some. I mean, I've done 12 or 15 peer reviewed journal articles, but I've thought of myself much more as a podcaster first than a scholar. So when I'm approaching you, I'm thinking like, this is one of my heroes. And where I would totally. I don't want to. I don't want to mess up anyone's narrative because people feel personal about their narratives.

Guest [01:51:24] I would say absolutely. When I came to interview you, I was like, people need to rediscover Sandra Tanner, people. She is a legend. And I've considered it my honor to be able to help people rediscover you because it annoys me. One of the biggest things that have always annoyed me, has always annoyed me is how quickly we forget about the people who have really contributed to where we are today.

Guest [01:51:52] So I just, I'm going to take friendly, loving umbrage at this idea. Number one, that I had any hostile intention. Two, that I look down on you in any way. I looked at you as a hero then and I do now and.

Sandra Tanner [01:52:08] Well, not to. Not to. I don't want people to think that I'm putting you down. It's that I didn't know you.

Guest [01:52:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Chris Thomas [01:52:18] You didn't know what podcasts were.

Sandra Tanner [01:52:20] I didn't know what podcasts were. But you mentioned that for people that you interviewed early on, they were not necessarily people that were buddies of mine.

Guest [01:52:33] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [01:52:34] And so they. They came from a different camp.

Guest [01:52:38] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [01:52:39] Than me as an evangelical Christian outside of the Mormon historical community.

Chris Thomas [01:52:44] In some ways, it's comparable to the interview with Anne, your first interview.

Guest [01:52:53] And why.

Chris Thomas [01:52:54] Yeah. Because she's not LDS anymore. Yeah, right.

Sandra Tanner [01:53:00] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:53:01] She doesn't have advanced training.

Sandra Tanner [01:53:03] Right.

Chris Thomas [01:53:04] It's off the beaten path.

Sandra Tanner [01:53:06] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:53:06] Well, let us have our fun, John.

Guest [01:53:07] No, this is great.

Chris Thomas [01:53:08] Go ahead.

Guest [01:53:09] I'm feeling passionate. I love this. No, you know, 2014. Do you guys know what important thing happened to me in 2014? No, just by. That's the year I got my letter that I was going to be excommunicated.

Excommunication and Its Personal Impact

Sandra Tanner [01:53:22] Ah, okay.

Guest [01:53:23] And so I would have. Number one. Well, up until 2014, I was trying to stay in the church.

Sandra Tanner [01:53:31] Yeah.

Guest [01:53:32] And I think there was. I mean, I don't think there was anyone who was probably viewed more infamously than. Than you and Gerald.

Sandra Tanner [01:53:41] Yeah.

Guest [01:53:43] Ever, you know, probably ever. Other than Fon Brody. And so I think I. That might have been me trying to preserve my capital with the brethren, because even though I had left, lost my faith in the church in 2001, you know, it wasn't until the church, like, told me they were going to kick me out in 2014 that I felt like, man, I better not go too far. So I think. I think, honestly, the reason why I waited so long was because I didn't want to poke the bear too much. But once I knew the writing was on the wall, then it was like I was. I was thrilled. I also think just someone from Idaho is just like, you really need to interview Sandra. And then my friend Richard Holdman reached out and said, hey, I'll do the video. And I really wanted to do it in video.

Sandra Tanner [01:54:28] Yeah.

Guest [01:54:28] So, anyway, all I can say is I've always had the deepest respect for you. I. That was an honor of my life to do that now. It's true. It's true. And I'm okay talking about this like, it's true that one of the. One of the biggest criticisms I've ever received on Mormon stories was that. That people felt like I was kind of hard on you about kind of the biblical or Christian stuff.

Sandra Tanner [01:54:54] Yeah.

Guest [01:54:54] You know, because there's always been that criticism that, like. Well, Sandra looks at the Book of Mormon with the critical eye, but then with the Bible, she kind of turns that off. But I don't. I never. I'm never trying to do gotchas, and I respect people of faith, but I did want to. When I asked someone hard questions, it's out of respect because it means that I. I respect them and value them, and I'm gonna ask them a hard question, but then I'm gonna sit and let them answer and hopefully give them a chance to explain themselves. I hope you feel like I did that.

Sandra Tanner [01:55:26] Yeah. Well, that it all turned out for good. And I was so glad that I had done. Was a game changer for me. And I, in a sense, came into my own right of speaking about Mormonism. It wasn't just me echoing Gerald.

Guest [01:55:47] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [01:55:47] I came into my own as someone who spoke to the issue, and it

Chris Thomas [01:55:52] is kind of Unbelievable how explosive those, those interviews were in terms of viewership. Yeah, I mean, it's nuts.

Guest [01:56:03] Oh, definitely. Hundreds of thousands of people have watched those interviews by now and listen, listen to her.

Chris Thomas [01:56:09] Let me ask you a question, John. Do you think your interview with Sandra had anything that facilitated to do with the facilitation of your excommunication?

Guest [01:56:20] You know, I've never, I've never made that association because I feel like you've

Sandra Tanner [01:56:25] done enough damage already. I'm not to blame.

Guest [01:56:32] I mean, I think that interviewing. I think that interviewing Grant Palmer, which I did pretty early, put me on Dan Peterson's bad list. And I think the Tom Phillips interview, where I'm interviewing about the second anointing, didn't do me any favor.

Sandra Tanner [01:56:50] Wow, that was a big one.

Guest [01:56:51] Yeah, yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:56:54] As an outsider, I remember watching those interviews and, and really loving them.

Guest [01:56:59] Oh, Michael Coe was a big one. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Thomas [01:57:02] Oh yeah. And then watching your later interviews with Sandra, it seemed to me like in that first set of interviews you're pushing in certain ways, but it's almost like in the process of the pushing you are converted. Not religiously, but you know, the things you push on. Well, fair enough. That's part of the, that's part of the package. And in the following interviews you always have done with Sandra, it's like this is an expert that I'm bringing in that I defer to on all manner of thing.

Chris Thomas [01:57:54] And you know, you're very. My experience with you is you're very respectful. My brother, who's in kind of high security law enforcement at the national level, that's about all I can say. When he was watching the interviews, he said he was really careful and trying his best not to be non offensive in getting at issues that could be explosive. And so I view those interviews in this broader trajectory.

Chris Thomas [01:58:32] Right. And I think what I hear Sandra saying is it's all so unknown at that point in her life and she wasn't quite sure if there was a future and then boom. Right. And for the record, you pushed your mom pretty hard. If I can just get that on the record yet again.

Chris Thomas [01:59:00] So, I mean, from Turner to Dehlin to me, those are just extraordinary moments. Neither of which had anything to do with you being smart enough to manipulate the media. Yeah, right.

Sandra Tanner [01:59:18] Well, I never was. So

Chris Thomas [01:59:22] and so, I mean, I think that's just been an extraordinary thing. And I think that's been surprising to you, John, that it was so significant for Sandra.

Guest [01:59:32] Well, it's one of the, it's for sure one of the top five honors of my 1800, you know, of my 18 years.

Sandra Tanner [01:59:39] Yeah.

Guest [01:59:39] And almost 1700 episodes was to help people rediscover you and Gerald.

Sandra Tanner [01:59:45] Yes.

Guest [01:59:46] And then to have you on multiple times, like, just having you on this past year or two so many times.

Chris Thomas [01:59:52] Yeah.

Guest [01:59:52] Like our DNC 132 series. Oh, man. I, I, I can't. You know, you don't. I'll never meet Fon Brody. I'll never meet Juanita Brooks. I'll never meet Leonard Arrington or Lil Bennion. I'll never meet a lot of those people. I got to meet you.

Sandra Tanner [02:00:05] Yeah.

Guest [02:00:06] And, and I got to enjoy you and see how lovely you are and kind and personal and caring and brilliant, you know, like, like, I don't know if you feel like you lived in Gerald's shadow, like you said, for a long, long time, but I don't think you're living in anybody's shadow. And I'm, I'm honored to be a part of that part of your life.

Sandra Tanner [02:00:28] Well, good. I, I'm proud to be part of yours.

Chris Thomas [02:00:31] And this part of her life not have been possible without, without your intersection.

Love and Respect for Those Who Leave the Church

Guest [02:00:40] Can I say one more thing that I think applies to both of you? So, so it's common within. It's, it's almost a cliche that so many people who lose their faith in Mormonism lose their faith in God and Jesus.

Guest [02:00:54] And so because so many do that, then it's like, well, everybody does. And then when you were like, wait a minute, not everyone does, you know, like, oh, Michael, you know, Michael Quinn still believed. And you're like, what? Michael Quinn still believed that there were golden plates. And it's like, yeah, and Darrell Givens and Richard Bushman. What? You know, you know, there's been that with you.

Guest [02:01:17] And, and there, there, I imagine that some of your reticence was like, feeling that kind of post Mormon vibe that smart people abandoned Christ. Smart people abandon God and Jesus. Which, by the way, I've never preached against God, a belief in God or belief against Christ, but it has been curious to me.

Sandra Tanner [02:01:39] Yeah.

Guest [02:01:39] Right. What I, what I loved about man interactions with you is you helped me start to begin to, like, not just accept, but love and embrace people who retain their beliefs in God and Jesus because you, you live an exemplary life aside from your scholarship. And Chris, I put you in that category. And Steven Pinecker, I put in that category. And, and one of the great joys of my past 5 to 10 years has been not just getting to know some amazing Christians, but learning to respect their Faith and not to. And it's not that I look down on them, but I. But I don't know that I.

Guest [02:02:23] I think that I probably reserved. It's like, oh, there's something wrong there. You know, like, what's going on? And now I'm just like, these are good people doing really good things who are just really kind. And I think a lot of ex Mormons who are atheist or agnostic could learn a lot about kindness from. From many of these people that I've mentioned. And that includes you, Sandra, and you, Chris. And so that's. That's been beautiful to learn to have full respect.

Chris Thomas [02:02:58] Yeah.

Guest [02:02:59] Not just academic or historical, scholarly respect. And I mean that.

Sandra Tanner [02:03:06] I appreciate it.

Chris Thomas [02:03:07] Very kind, John. And we, We. We. We receive that. I don't often speak for Sandra, but, yes, I'd like to, but I don't. I'm. I'm smart. We received that. And I think it says something about the importance and need for conversations.

Guest [02:03:27] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [02:03:28] You know.

Sandra Tanner [02:03:28] Well, I think we can exemplify how you can have conversations with people of different positions and do it respectfully, that a lot of people are afraid of these kind of discussions. And I was with you because we don't know if we can trust you to do it as a friend and not as an adversary. And I've tried in the bookstore to model that, and I haven't always been successful because I have lost my temper in the bookstore. And I will be free to admit it.

Chris Thomas [02:04:05] But I told you, I'm sorry about all of that.

Sandra Tanner [02:04:08] Oh, well, I accept that. Yes. But we've all learned through the years how to have respectful disagreements or respectful sharing of different positions. And it doesn't have to diminish our love and respect for one another because we hold different positions. And, boy, you really need that with Mormonism, because people get so uptight on one position or the other that they push people away that might have had some openness to talk with you about something, but your determination to win has stopped the conversation.

Chris Thomas [02:04:53] You know, I will say, without being too specific, that in the. In the field of Mormon studies, when people find out that I'm friends with Sandra, their first question is, they'll say, you know Sandra Tanner? And I'll say, yeah, she's a good friend of mine. What's she like?

Sandra Tanner [02:05:17] Spooky.

Chris Thomas [02:05:20] Well, I try to soft pedal that part of it, but it's. You know, I think what you've done, John, in the interviews with Sandra is you've been a real conduit to people who may not Feel like they are able to talk to Sandra directly, who may then talk to Sandra. You know, it's. It's very significant. And one of the reasons I wanted to talk about that with Sandra and of course with you now is that, you know, from Turner to Dehlin, I mean, that's. That's significant. It's a game changer.

Sandra Tanner [02:06:01] Yes. There was a lot of history between those two events.

Chris Thomas [02:06:07] That's right. It's not quite like the mother of Jesus at the wedding at Cana and at the cross, but it does envelop a whole swath of things there. And I think that's just. As somebody that's been a good bit of an outsider for so long on all this, just to. To pick out those events. I mean, the Turner event is just crazy.

Sandra Tanner [02:06:35] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [02:06:35] You know, and then I'm just. I've talked to Sandra on various occasions. John, how glad are you you did those interviews?

Guest [02:06:43] Oh, yeah.

Chris Thomas [02:06:44] Oh, he's. He's like. I was really tempted not to, but. But yeah, they've been so important.

Guest [02:06:49] Oh, yeah. No, it was a game changer for me and I hope. Thank you for giving me that chance.

Sandra Tanner [02:06:55] Yeah.

Guest [02:06:56] Thank you for being my friend.

Chris Thomas [02:06:57] Yeah.

Guest [02:06:58] And I hope you feel my full love and respect now. Do you feel it?

Sandra Tanner [02:07:03] Yes.

Guest [02:07:04] Do you feel it?

Sandra Tanner [02:07:04] Yes.

Guest [02:07:05] You sure?

Sandra Tanner [02:07:05] Yeah.

Guest [02:07:06] No. No if, ands or buts.

Sandra Tanner [02:07:07] No exceptions.

Chris Thomas [02:07:08] Oh, she was talking to me the other day about another idea for reading parts of scripture with you.

Guest [02:07:15] All right, I'll do that. What is that?

Chris Thomas [02:07:20] Yeah. Well, I don't recall the specific, but it was in the light of the DNC 132. There are other things that would be nice to kind of work through.

Guest [02:07:29] I love that. I'll do that anytime.

Chris Thomas [02:07:32] We better write it down.

Sandra Tanner [02:07:33] Yes. Right.

Chris Thomas [02:07:34] Okay.

Sandra Tanner [02:07:34] We get that in stone here.

Guest [02:07:36] So you're not fully retiring, Is that what I'm hearing?

Sandra Tanner [02:07:38] Well, I'm not going to have a bookstore anymore.

Guest [02:07:40] Right. But you'll come up. You'll come on the podcast every once in a while?

Sandra Tanner [02:07:43] Sure. Oh, I'm always. I like to talk, talk, so.

Guest [02:07:47] Okay. We'll be the place that you talk.

Sandra Tanner [02:07:50] Yes. Okay.

Guest [02:07:51] All right. Chris, you're a miracle worker, man.

Chris Thomas [02:07:54] Well, I do sometimes get emails addressed to Christ and I will say. And I will respond by saying, I don't really require that, but I appreciate it. Just call me Chris. So this probably a good place to. To land the plane temporarily or long term or whatever.

Sandra Tanner [02:08:12] Yeah.

Guest [02:08:13] Can we talk about Wesley Walter sometime? Can you guys.

Chris Thomas [02:08:15] Well, he's on the list.

Guest [02:08:16] Yeah. Let's come back and there's a lot on.

Chris Thomas [02:08:18] I mean, we can.

Guest [02:08:19] Yeah.

Chris Thomas [02:08:20] We'll sign off and we'll talk.

Guest [02:08:21] Okay.

Chris Thomas [02:08:22] About what we want.

Guest [02:08:23] Because we gotta. At some point, we gotta talk about Wesley.

Chris Thomas [02:08:25] Oh, yeah.

Guest [02:08:25] And many others. Yeah.

Chris Thomas [02:08:26] Yeah, that's right.

Guest [02:08:27] Okay.

Chris Thomas [02:08:28] So, Sandra, thanks so much for allowing us to record one of our mini conversations.

Sandra Tanner [02:08:34] Yes.

Chris Thomas [02:08:34] And, John, thank you so much for. For opening the studios and taking time out of a busy schedule to do this and to. And for the engagement, which is very, very valuable indeed. So thanks so much.

Guest [02:08:50] It's my pleasure. And thanks for all you do, Chris and Sandra, we love you.

Sandra Tanner [02:08:54] Yeah. Well, it's been a fun day. It's been a good conversation, and I've enjoyed both your friendships. Yes. Thank you.

Closing Reflections and Farewell to Sandra

Guest [02:09:01] Can you give us 20 more years, Sandra?

Sandra Tanner [02:09:03] Well, I'm working on it.

Guest [02:09:05] Yeah.

Sandra Tanner [02:09:06] My aunt lived to be 101, so I got good genes. Well, I'll see.

Chris Thomas [02:09:14] Sandra was sharp right to the end.

Sandra Tanner [02:09:16] She was sharp. Yes.

Guest [02:09:17] So I've talked to you, Sandra, about maybe doing a podcast where I just interview Sandra regularly and just, like, poke in and let just all the good Sandra knowledge just flow through in hundreds of hours of wisdom.

Chris Thomas [02:09:31] Well, the thing.

Guest [02:09:32] One a week, Sandra. Just one a week.

Chris Thomas [02:09:34] Just one thing about Sandra is she can feel overwhelmed if there's not a plan.

Guest [02:09:41] Yeah, yeah.

Chris Thomas [02:09:42] But,

Sandra Tanner [02:09:45] yeah, put the needle down and I start talking.

Chris Thomas [02:09:48] The plan is like an outline to a Pentecostal preacher.

Sandra Tanner [02:09:51] There we go. Yes.

Chris Thomas [02:09:53] May or may not go according to the outline, and those points may be terribly expanded.

Sandra Tanner [02:10:00] Yes.

Guest [02:10:00] Did William Davis call those the bones or something like that?

Chris Thomas [02:10:03] Laying down heads.

Guest [02:10:04] Laying down heads. Okay. Is that. Is that a term you're familiar with?

Chris Thomas [02:10:08] No, not till I read his. His book, but it all made sense.

Guest [02:10:12] Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Thomas [02:10:13] To anybody that does con, you know, extemporaneous speaking. Yeah.

Guest [02:10:17] All right, well, we'll. Chris, we'll put our heads together with Sandra and we'll come up with the Sandra Tanner podcast. Oh, outline.

Chris Thomas [02:10:23] There we go.

Sandra Tanner [02:10:24] Got to have an outline. Yeah.

Guest [02:10:26] All right, Chris, thanks so much.

Chris Thomas [02:10:28] Yeah, thank you.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.