Biography

Mary Susan Leggroan Tanner was the tenth child born to her mother and father, Edward (Ned) and Susan Gray Reid Leggroan. Ned and his wife had come to Utah Territory in 1870 with Ned’s sister, Amanda Leggroan Chambers and her husband, Samuel Davidson Chambers. Ned and Susan joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a few years after their arrival and subsequently baptized all but their youngest child in the Church. The Leggroan family farmed in several places in the Intermountain West, but lastly in Idaho. Their many descendants married into other Black families in Utah and Idaho and formed the nucleus of the early small Black societies of those places.

Mary was born on January 15, 1891, after the Leggroans had left Utah to farm in eastern Idaho. She was baptized on May 6, 1900 in the Milo, Idaho Ward by W.B. Huffaker and confirmed as a member of the Church the next day by A.P. Newman.[1]

Mary spent her childhood on the family farms in Idaho. At the age of eighteen, she married biracial Thomas George Tanner, a thirty-year-old widower who had also been baptized into the Church as a child. The couple married in Idaho Falls on October 20, 1909, but settled in the Upland Precinct of Fremont County, Idaho near where Thomas’s family farmed.[2]

On January 10, 1911, Mary gave birth to their first child, Geneva Tanner, in Idaho Falls. A little less than two years later, on October 27, 1913, a second daughter, Helena, was born.[3] Helena had a heart valve defect that led to her death just a few hours after her birth. Thomas and Mary buried Helena in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Idaho Falls.[4]

The Tanners moved northward to Tetonia, Idaho within the next two years. Thomas farmed in Tetonia and worked in a pool hall.[5] While living in Tetonia, Mary gave birth to their youngest child, Harold George, on October 5, 1915. Harold and his older sister, Geneva, thrived and lived until maturity.

By 1920, Thomas had given up farming and had become the manager of a pool hall in Tetonia.[6] At some time, later in the decade, the family once again moved, this time to Nevada.[7] One more relocation took them to Tacoma, Washington.[8] In 1930, Geneva was married, but she was at her family’s home in Tacoma when the census taker enumerated the household. Thomas worked as a janitor in the county hospital, Geneva worked as a maid in a department store, and even fourteen-year-old Harold had a job delivering clothing for a local store. Mary was not employed outside the home.[9]

Late in 1937, the Tanner family hit a particularly rough spot. On November 29, Thomas was arrested in Seattle. He was tried and convicted of holding and selling heroin without proper licensing. He went to federal prison on McNeil Island for two years.[10]

By 1940, Mary had moved to San Francisco where she roomed with another woman. She declared her marital status as “divorced.” Mary worked as a seamstress for the WPA. The census lists her address for 1935 as the same as it was in 1940, indicating she may have divorced Thomas before his arrest and incarceration.[11]

Mary moved to the Millcreek area of Salt Lake County, Utah, after California. When the 1950 U.S. census was taken, Mary stated that she worked as a maid in a private home.[12] Other members of her extended family lived near to her. She next moved to Las Vegas, Nevada where she lived with her daughter, Geneva.[13] She stayed there until her death on July 21, 1962. She had been suffering from Parkinson’s Disease and died of malnutrition.[14] She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Las Vegas, Nevada.[15]

After her baptism as a child, Mary Susan Leggroan Tanner did not affiliate with the Church. She married a Mormon, but they did not baptize their children and there is no further evidence of church participation.

By Tonya S. Reiter

[1] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, Milo Ward, Part 1, CR 375 8, box 4224, folder 1, image 14, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[2] United States, 1910 Census, Idaho, Fremont County, Upland Precinct.

[3] Idaho, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Birth, File No. 17311, Registered No. 245, Helena Tanner, Idaho State Archives, Boise, Idaho.

[4] Helena Tanner, Findagrave.com.

[5] United States, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, Thomas George Tanner, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.

[6] United States, 1920 Census, Idaho, Teton County, Tetonia.

[7] Tacoma, Washington City Directory, 1929, Tanner, Thos G (Mary), 763.

[8] The only extant evidence of the Tanner’s residence in Elko consists of a mention in Mary’s mother’s 1928 obituary that listed Mary’s home as Elko, Nevada. See: “Mary S. Leggroan Dies After Short Illness,” The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah) 12 December 1928, 14. In addition, Thomas evidently joined a Masonic fraternity in Elko. See, “Deaths, Funerals, Tanner,” Seattle Times (Seattle, Washington), 23 April 1959, 53.

[9] United States, 1930 Census, Washington, Pierce County, Tacoma. A few weeks later, Geneva also showed up in the 1930 census with her husband in Taplin, Nez Pierce, Idaho.

[10] Washington, State Corrections and Jail Records, 1877-1970, U.S. Penitentiary McNeil Island, Photos and Records of Prisoners Received, 1887-1939. Thomas had violated the Harrison Narcotics Act.

[11] United States, 1940 Census, California, San Francisco County, San Francisco.

[12] United States, 1950 Census, Utah, Salt Lake County, Unincorporated.

[13] Las Vegas City Directory, 1954, “Tanner, Mary S. Mrs.,” 217.

[14] Nevada State Department of Health, Division of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death, file no. 1476, registrar’s no. 655, Mary Susan Tanner, Nevada State Library, Archives and Public Records, Carson City, Nevada.

[15] Mary Susan Leggroan Tanner, Findagrave.com

Documents

Click the index tab in the viewer above to view all primary source documents available for this person.