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Alberta Online Encyclopedia

Mormon

Nathan Eldon Tanner

Nathan Eldon Tanner was born in 1898 to a family of Mormons who had immigrated to Cardston. He completed his teaching degree and taught in various schools in southern Alberta, eventually becoming principal of Cardston High School. He won his first election in 1935 as a Social Credit candidate and continued to be an MLA for seventeen years. In 1936, he was made Speaker of the House of Commons and he later held the position of Minister of Lands and Mines for fifteen years. When he retired from politics, Tanner went into business and was President of TransCanada PipeLines when the line was built between Alberta and Ontario. After retiring from business, Tanner spent his time volunteering for the Mormon Church.

Charles Ora Card home, Cardston, Alberta

Zina Young Card

Zina Young Card was the daughter of Brigham Young, the leader of the Utah Mormons. She became the third wife of Charles Ora Card in 1884. Three years later, she travelled eight hundred miles by covered wagon to come to Alberta. Once there, she helped her husband found the first Mormon settlement in the province. Zina Card played an important role in the development of the Cardston community. She raised her family and performed religious duties, as well as funding numerous projects with money from her father’s estate. Among the buildings she helped to fund were the church and the high school. She had a motherly nature and was known for her hospitality, entertaining Aboriginal people, police, government officials, and neighbours in her cosy house whose walls were lined with bright flannel.

Fay Wray was born in Cardston on 15 September 1907 to Mormon parents. She moved at a young age with her family to the United States. When she was only sixteen, Wray made her first Hollywood appearance. She went on to make over seventy films, the most well known being the 1933 film, King Kong. Wray passed away in 2004 at the age of ninety-seven.

Charles Ora Card, Cardston, Alberta

Charles Ora Card

Charles Ora Card was born in New York in 1839. His parents joined the Mormon Church in 1856, and in 1860 they arrived in Logan, Utah. Card was very active in the community, running a sawmill, helping to build roads and canals, and superintending the Logan Temple. Card was forced to leave the United States and, in 1887, settled in Alberta. He was the leader of the Mormon community in Alberta, initiating economic programs and irrigation systems, as well as promoting cultural and religious ties between the members of the settlement. His health began to fail in 1902 and he returned to Logan, where he remained until his death in 1906. The town of Cardston is named in his honour.


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