Saturday, September 6, 2008

Tanner 2: LeRoy Parkinson Tanner

It's a little too early for Halloween, but after running to the store this morning and seeing all the Halloween decorations going up and bags of candy lining the shelves, my thoughts turned (of course) to (what else but) genealogy....

In the Case of the Roy Tanner Family, it was not a skeleton in the closet; it was a mummy.

To be precise, it may have been under the closet rather than inside.

And to be technically correct, it may not even have been under the closet, although the closets in question are quite large.

Anyone familiar with the Eastern Arizona region quickly becomes aware of the existence of previous civilizations in the area. Poking around in certain irrigation ditches is always guaranteed to turn up a handful of potsherds, from the simple fragment to the patterned and ornate one.

Roy and Eva Tanner's home was built in stages in the 1920s-30s, starting with the living room-kitchen-dining room area and then expanding into the bedroom areas. When Roy excavated the foundation of the small bedroom right off the living room, he dug up an ancient Native American burial.

They drove the well-preserved mummy 150 miles and donated it to the university in Flagstaff.

(Sorry, no spine-tingling, blood-curdling stories here. This is a genealogy blog, not an Alfred Hitchcock collection.)

Thanks to Ryan for the photo from a couple years back which I lifted off the cousins' blog. It shows the house from the back in its expanded form, including the eventual attic rooms. Originally, the brick would not have been painted.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, I never knew that story! Thanks for sharing it; I learn something new every time I visit your blog. :)

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  2. alfred hitchcock collection! you kill me!

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  3. Another Wow! All I can say is keep sharing! Thanks, Amy. :)

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