 Tanner Manor gave Mom and Dad space aplenty for rearing a large brood of children, but they could not afford maids and gardeners to keep the place in good order. Instead, they used their 8000-sq.-ft. suburban home as a laboratory to teach their children how to work. Raised on the mantra “Work before play,” we pitched in a little every day to keep the house clean inside and the yards tamed outside.
Mom and Dad were a united front in teaching us to work. Their goals extended far beyond having a clean, organized home, but we didn’t know that until years later. All we knew was that hard work, family unity, and fun were not always cozy partners. We did know that dirt was the enemy. Mom taught us to go after dirt and disorder with a vengeance. Dad supported her efforts, frequently chiming in with one of his favorite truisms: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Although few of us could work with the same speed, gusto, and endurance as Mom, we dutifully washed, wiped, scoured, and scrubbed.
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 The grandeur of Tanner Manor belied our humble lifestyle, but we were rich in some ways. Because Mom and Dad trusted us, they gave us a very long leash to play and discover things on our own, making us rich in freedom. We didn’t have to go much further than the walls and halls of our own home to find adventures. Consequently, no nook or cranny of Tanner Manor went unexplored.
Take our full-length attic, for example. More than the typical, dusty repository of old things, the attic in Tanner Manor served as our gymnasium, play room, and hideout where we could safely escape the din of the house. Just before I was born, a house fire ravaged the attic necessitating the family to move out for six months while the insurance company made good on the claim. According to Mom, the cleanup gave the old place a fresh upgrade. What kind of shape the attic was in pre-conflagration is a mystery, but it did get a fresh coat of silver paint. (Why silver is a mystery to me!) Nonetheless, the wood floor had no insulation and the rafters were left exposed and rough.  I had to miss Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary weekend celebration because I was pregnant with Craig and weeks away from delivering, but the other siblings went to Utah to be with the folks. Bobbe, in particular, made it special by compiling a couple of binders full of mementos. Scott later told me one of the binders included a letter I wrote to Santa when I was only four years old.
Only four? Really?  For most of my young years, we didn’t own a washer and dryer, and I always assumed we couldn’t afford one, but it turns out Mom didn’t want them. Thirteen kids and she didn’t want to be able to launder clothes on the premises? Impossible! But Dad verified it when I was grown.
Instead of doing loads of laundry throughout each day, Mom preferred to knock out the gargantuan task in a few hours. So, a couple times a week she’d get up “before the crack of dawn," wake two or three of us younger kids (who didn’t attend seminary yet), borrow change from the older kids, then orchestrate the production line of loading the station wagon with dirty clothes.  Unforgiveness and grudges among blood relatives is so much more common than I ever imagined.
One night, my book group discussed families breaking up over an argument or small dispute. Evidently, certain groups are infamous for their contentious ways, as I learned from friends who hail from various places around the globe. One lady said when West Virginians disagree, they simply stop talking to each other; Italians, in contrast, favor a more vociferous cutting off, perpetuating anger over long-forgotten quarrels; and Germans, even after decades of not talking, refuse to visit relatives so their children and grandchildren may go their whole lives without knowing their grandparents and aunts and uncles. In the Tanner family, this kind of behavior would be considered immature and unacceptable.  From my earliest memories, Dad was in debt. I wasn’t told directly how The Debt (better known as The Debt) came to be such an unwelcome but close member of the family, but it didn't take much to figure out it was the black sheep. As the years rolled on, I picked up bits and pieces about Dad borrowing money from friends to build “The Business,” another complicated family member. This I did know: The Debt weighed heavily on our very existence.
In my young mind, The Debt explained why we didn’t do repairs on the house and why we never stayed in hotels or took nice vacations. The ever-present Debt explained why we all wore hand-me-downs, held jobs from an early age, got haircuts at home, ate off of paper plates, and drank out of orange juice cans. Because of The Debt, we understood we were expected to pay for our clothes, sports equipment, dance tickets, and student activity cards, and we knew to borrow pocket change from each other rather than from our parents.  Above all else, what I loved about the McDonalds’ house next door was their pool. Sometimes, we would act politely and wait to be invited, and sometimes we’d drop big hints, but on particularly scorching-hot days we didn’t have much patience and would ask straight out if we could swim in their pool. Suits on and towels already in hand, we’d hoist ourselves over the cinderblock wall and scurry into the pool yard to swim to our hearts’ content.
 Loud and fast: two words that describe my younger self.
I was a very active little girl, in constant motion from sunup to sundown. However, when I got a cold, sometimes it would turn into something worse, and my very personality would change. I may have forgotten this pattern, except for a couple of memories.  [A posthumous tribute I wrote on Dad’s 90th birthday] As a very little girl, I used to love playing in a closet just off the back stairs. If I closed the door, I felt alone in a house otherwise teeming with people but safe in a world full of potential adventure and hidden treasures including hundreds of worn paperbacks, my mother’s colored array of high-heeled shoes, and stylish hats in hatboxes from another era.
Exploring in the closet one day, I played with the door’s heavy, brass lock and accidentally locked myself in. Suddenly, I didn’t feel safe anymore. Fun and adventure quickly turned to fear and isolation—feelings mostly foreign to me as a child. Even those dearest to me couldn’t help me escape. My mother couldn’t explain how to unlatch the lock, my brothers couldn’t unlock it from the outside, and my sisters couldn’t comfort me with their kind words. Then my dad happened along.  Athelia Sears Tanner, age 99, passed away on January 16, 2020. She was born on September 12, 1920 in Bountiful, Utah, the seventh of ten children. She grew up in Salt Lake City, where she met William Coats (Bill) Tanner, Jr. in high school. They were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on February 14, 1942. She graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in nutritional science while expecting her first child. She and Bill moved several times while he went to war and pursued graduate degrees. By the time he graduated in 1952, the couple had six children. They moved their growing family to South Pasadena, California, where they lived for the next thirty-four years and reared 13 children (seven sons and six daughters).
After sending most of their children on church missions, Bill and Athelia themselves spent the next decade and a half serving five missions together, including one as President of the Illinois Chicago Mission. Their love and service have touched the lives of thousands of people and have had an immeasurable impact on their posterity. Following Bill’s passing in 2002, Athelia served yet another mission for the church at the Nauvoo Illinois Temple with her sister Lue. |
Meet JanetI'm the twelfth of 13 children. I was born into a poor family rich in blessings. We lived in South Pasadena, California, on top of a hill in a big house we called Tanner Manor. These are my stories of growing up there. Archives
March 2025
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