Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of a 27-page diary kept by Sara Jane Tanner as she traveled through Illinois and Iowa in 1874, as well as a photograph of Tanner and one of her husband.
Sara Jane (nee Spaulding) Tanner (1832-1924) was born in Granville, New York. She married Oscar M. Tanner in 1851 in Kane County, Illinois, and the couple had six children. The family lived on a 185-acre farm in DeKalb County, Illinois.
This collection consists of a 27-page diary kept by Sara Jane Tanner during a wagon and train trip from Hinckley, DeKalb County, Illinois, to Nashua, Chickasaw County, Iowa, and back. Tanner traveled with her husband, Oscar M. Tanner and the Brooks family, between August 17 to September 11, 1874. She describes the countryside, the Mississippi River, and other points of interest along the journey. Photographs of the Turners are also included in the collection.
The diary was donated to the Illinois Historical Survey in 1973 by Grace Wilson, widow of Sara Jane Tanner's grandson, Harold R. Wanless. Wanless was a Professor of Geology at the University of Illinois from 1929-1967.
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