Bruce Tanner
October 17, 1946 — September 29, 2024
I’ve been staring out the window for nearly an hour, this beautiful October morning, trying to get my mind around the task of writing about my father’s life and death. The air is crisp and the leaves on the trees are starting to fall as the stubborn summer has finally (seemingly) conceded to autumn here in Salt Lake City. Maya Angelou wrote an incredible poem called ‘When Great Trees Fall’ and I am thinking about that now. He was a great tree, and the shadow he cast was long. I miss him terribly. I imagine you reading this and know you miss him too.
He would have been 78 a few days ago, born on October 17th, 1946 at the end of World War II. A brand new world of sorts and I imagine that day was not unlike this one … blue skies, scattered clouds, deep browns, reds and golds as Douglas and Alta Tanner welcomed their 6th and final child into the world. His older sisters, twins Joyce and Joan, were already in high school and hIs older brother Floyd and older sister Gayle rounded out the Tanner clan. There was another boy, Douglas Jr. who died shortly after birth in 1935. HIs mother was 39 when he was born and I know she treasured her new baby boy. She cared deeply for him, and I watched him do the same for her my whole life. They had a remarkable, deep relationship caring for one another until her death in 1999.

Bruce was born at Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City, just blocks away from the Tanner home on 10th east. The house, affectionately known by family and friends as ‘250,’ was majestic and the gathering place for family reunions, holidays and weddings since the home was purchased at the tail end of the depression in 1929. My father felt deeply connected to that house his entire life, and whenever he talked about home, it was 250. I still drive by it all the time, and am always flooded with memories of cutting the grass and sleepovers with my grandparents. Big extended family dinners and lots of laughing. It felt like a castle, and it was warm and inviting. I can still see his mom in the kitchen, boiling a chicken or making some kind of jello fruit dessert. The Tanner family was kind and they loved food. The house was always full of flowers and music and there was a deep sense of love and family and belonging there.

That same year (1929) his father Doug opened Classic Cleaners on the corner of 5th east and 3rd south. My grandfather worked there until the day he died in October 1986. My father, at the age of 40, took over and continued its legacy of quality dry cleaning until it closed permanently in 2020. The dates are a little fuzzy, but I remembered my dad telling me that he had been working there since he was 15. I loved getting to visit my dad at the cleaners. It felt like a different planet. All kinds of pipes and hoses and there was always an eccentric crew working the machines. I worked there during high school and college alongside my brother and sisters and my cousin Scott. I realize now how lucky we were to do that. We spent a lot of time together with my dad and he paid us very well for doing very little work.
My dad attended school in Salt Lake; Bryant Junior High and East High, graduating in 1965. The Tanner kids all loved music and knew how to play the piano. He loved folk music and learned to play the guitar. He sang in choirs and joined music clubs. He and his friends ate burgers at Hire's Big H and pizza at Litza’s. He talked a lot about how much he loved Salt Lake City and what a fun place downtown was. He loved the Beatles and Peter Paul and Mary. He loved The Byrds singing Dylan songs, but didn’t love Dylan singing them himself. Can you imagine?
He served a mission for the LDS church in Germany, and he loved to tell us he was gone for 3 Christmases and how his mom gave him nothing but a set of nail clippers before he left. I think it was a challenging situation, and he didn’t have much success but made friends that he was still in contact with when he died a few weeks ago. He was deeply loyal to his friends, and some of those relationships formed early stayed with him his whole life.

He got a degree in business from the University of Utah and started a folk singing group where he met my mom. He really loved the Beach Boys, The Bee Gees and the Beatles, the Holy Trinity of the Three B's as my brother Brady has noted. He loved music, and I still think it’s pretty cool that my parents met in a band in the 60’s. Sounds so romantic and as you can see above there’s awesome photographic evidence of that groovy situation. Matching black and white outfits standing in the snow? I really wish I could have seen them play "Leaving on a Jet Plane.'
He enlisted in the Utah Air National Guard in the medical division with his friend Dave Walton. He started a carpet cleaning business and loved to play basketball, softball, golf, tennis, football, ping pong and card and board games. He and his friend Lynn Holtby opened a music store called ’Sticks and Strings’ and I still have some of the guitars he owned. He continued working at the cleaners as a delivery driver and loved attending the University of Utah basketball and football games. There was talk of dances and concerts (The Beach Boys at Lagoon) and he drove a late 60s Triumph convertible. It sounds amazing, and now that he’s gone I wish I would have asked more questions about it all.

He married my beautiful mom, Stephanie Sperry, in the Salt Lake Temple in 1972. For some reason he was wearing a patriotic tie and what appears to be a quasi-denim suit situation. He started losing his hair early and in the photographs it’s already starting to thin a little (more than a little.) He hated losing his hair, but I think he’s very handsome. (He always told me to hang on to mine, which I did.) They look really happy in those photographs as only people are when they don’t have any idea what life has in store for them. After they got married they had plans to move to Europe while my mom worked for some kind of international agency, only to have the experience cut short when her father died unexpectedly the following year in 1973.





Bruce Tanner with his father Doug on the left and his mother Alta on the right.
The '250' House on 10th E in Salt Lake City (left)
Bruce with Alta and Doug
circa 1970-71 (right)
Left: Do you believe in Magic? My parents (top center) in their folk singing group 'Hamilton Court' in 1972.
Right: Bruce in his Air National Guard get-up
Left: Bruce and Stephanie on the steps of the Salt Lake Temple. 1972.
Right: My parents with their parents at their wedding reception at Carriage Lane.
According to the legend everything changed in June of 1974 when Bruce and Stephanie brought some serious joy in the form of a baby boy into the world. I was born on Valley Street at the mouth of Parley's Canyon on what was described to me a million times as 'the greatest day of his entire life.' When I look at the photographs of the two of us, I believe it. Throughout his life my dad took a lot of slack for his apparent lack of the outward visual expression for happiness, but the smiles here all look and feel real to me.
My brother Brady was born 2 years later in the summer of 1976, and my beautiful twin sisters, Ashley and Shelby, in May of 1980. The details and timelines are a little fuzzy, but parents and their new little clan moved from Valley St. into charming little Cape Cod style house at 2529 Chadwick Street in Sugarhouse. My mom has said that it was a little insane managing 4 little kids under 6, while my dad spent more and more time working. I remember times riding in the Classic Cleaners delivery van to school those early years. Pretending we were surfing as my dad would steer a little back and forth trying to make us fall over. Different times, but they were good. In just a couple of years my dad would be gone to work before we'd even wake up and there wouldn't be any more rides in the van to school. Just a five mile walk, up-hill both ways.



Left to Right. Ryan, Brady, Shelby and Ashley.
The memories from this time are golden and sun-soaked. The 1980's were a good time to be a kid (Star Wars) and we had a lot of kids our age on Chadwick street. My dad built us a treehouse in the backyard with swings and a giant sandbox. We had an Irish Setter name Duchess and a terribly mean next door neighbor named Mr. Goddard that used to pop our soccer balls when they'd go over the fence with a knife and throw them back. My parents were very social creatures and had friends over for dinner parties or late night card games. They'd take us to watch fireworks at Sugarhouse park and get raspberry hurricanes from Snelgroves Ice Cream. My mom taught aerobics with her friend Mary and my dad played in a little bluegrass band with his friends from the local LDS church ward. Ralph on banjo, his brother Wes on mandolin and Shirley played upright bass. They had a repertoire of old gospel standards and performed at neighborhood parties and church get togethers, and i still remember sitting on the floor watching them practice. I learned a real love of playing music sitting at their feet and when I was involved years later in a group called The Lower Lights we recorded and performed some of those songs.
I remember my father taking classes to learn how to sculpt things out of clay, including a bust of Brady and a very lovely sculpture of a naked woman that he kept in the refrigerator. He'd listen to records (Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds), and make detailed drawings of Porsches and the house we lived in. He had a beautiful Canon camera and was always shooting super 8 footage of family reunions and us just being kids. Most of the footage that my sister Ashley compiled for this site and his funeral was shot by my father and it is incredibly important to us. I am so thankful that he loved to do things like this. He instilled a love of, and pursuit of beauty through creativity in our lives. Here's a spotify playlist of some of his favorite songs.
In 1985 we moved from Sugarhouse into a new house on Rockwell Drive in Sandy where my parents would live until we were all grown and gone. It was a beautiful house that looked different from every other house in that neighborhood. A lovely red brick situation with a steep pitched roof that could send a sheet of ice off of it that would take your head clean off. I think my dad designed the house, or at least was a part of that creative process. He set up a wood shop in the basement and planted flowers and trees in the beds. I drove past that house a few months ago and was struck at how big the trees were. It reminded me of the ancient Greek Proverb: 'A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.' He built a red playhouse (later a pumpkin distribution storage facility) in the backyard, and we got a big St. Bernard named Sebastian. Somewhere in there he started to wear a toupee and sometimes he'd leave it sitting out in the bathroom where it would scare the hell out of our friends. You can see the proof here:


Left: Bruce in his Pablo Escobar phase with Ashley and Shelby
Right: The Tanner's in a very rare family portrait.
It was a pretty typical suburban, middle-class situation. School, work, church. Loads of new families with small kids, which my mom really loved, but we started to see my dad less and less. We were about a 30-40 minute drive from downtown, and after my father's dad died in 1986 he became the sole owner and operator of Classic Cleaners. I think my dad always imagined himself doing something else, but he didn't and by moving out south his working days had gotten about 90 minutes longer every day. We started to see him less, and the time really became scarce when he was asked to be in the bishopric of the LDS Granite 5th ward in the late 80s.
The house on Rockwell Drive became the hub and gathering place for our neighborhood friends, much like how my dad had talked about 250 when he was a kid. Our backyard had a gate that opened into the huge field behind Quail Hollow Elementary and in the summers we'd get together to play football and baseball. My parents loved our friends and made sure they knew they were always welcome. They kept the pantry full of our friends favorite cereals and snacks and the refrigerator full of coke and other drinks. Sometimes late at night my dad would appear inside the kitchen door telling us to be quiet. He never said they needed to go home, just needed a little bit of quiet seeings how he'd need to be up for work in a couple of hours. The house was a safe space, and I know those who were there felt that. I'd like to publicly acknowledge Jason Kelly, Sean Rodgers, Ryan Chadwick, Trevor Oldroyd and Dave Nelson who became like brothers to me and Brady. My dad and mom loved them like their own, and continued to do so throughout their lives. That time in that house was transformative for all of us, and makes me very happy thinking about it now.


Left: My parents with surrogate son, Jason Kelly
Right: Brady, Shelby, Ryan and Ashley on the lawn of the Rockwell House. Middle parts were all the rage apparently.
When my Grandma Tanner got ill, and couldn't be in her house alone, they sold 250 and moved her into an apartment on 9th east and South Temple. My dad was gutted selling that house, though at the time I wouldn't really have understood just how devastating it really was. I think he made a point of having the Rockwell house be a second chapter of sorts. It would be the site of family birthday parties, family reunions and all kinds of celebrations from there on out. After my grandfather died, my grandma spent every holiday at our house and had dinner with us nearly every Sunday. My dad got pretty serious about the church later in his life, but during this time we'd usually drive straight from church, pick her up, and head to Chuck-A-Rama for dinner. My dad's family loved that place so much and became a constant in our lives. We have celebrated there after every funeral for my dad's family members and every year it would inevitably host the annual Classic Cleaners Christmas party.
My dad loved good food and sharing meals with his family and friends. His absolute favorite meal was the fried chicken dinner at the Maddox Drive-In and Restaurant in Brigham City, Utah. If you know him, you've heard him talk about it. He also loved the special at Crown Burger and the Greek Souvlaki restaurant across the street on 3rd South. Some of my favorite memories as a kid were the Saturdays we spent together where we'd go cut the grass at my grandma's house or the rental properties he managed and get a burger after. He loved the brunch at The Little America where we'd go on some Sunday mornings when all of the suckers from our ward went to Stake Conference. He loved family Chinese dinners from The Pagoda and The Mandarin.


My dad's favorite things.
Left: The almighty Crown Burger Special
Right: Maddox Chicken in Brigham City, Utah
I worked at Classic Cleaners alongside my father, my siblings and even extended family all through high school and well into college. I feel really lucky and grateful for this time. I think without it we never would have seen him at all with everything that was happening in our lives. He never missed work. Ever. My mom told me a few weeks ago she remembered him only missing one day being sick. He did get better about this later in life when he slowly started to share the responsibility of opening and closing up. He even took a few vacations and cruises with his friends later in life, but he never did that when we were young. The cleaners closed the same week every year for its annual holiday break around the Utah holiday 'Pioneer Day' on the 24th. He'd close the plant and we'd head to the Sun Valley area, where my Aunt Joan and her family had a beautiful cabin right on the Wood River in Ketchum, Idaho or to San Diego where he'd trade a customer dry cleaning for one week a year at a condo in Del Mar, California.
When I look back at the time spent with grandpa I think about steak, mashed potatoes, family, cars, music, his awesome guitars, and his stuff in the unfinished basement. But when I think about him I’m reminded of all the conversations I had with him where he would look directly into your eyes and absorb every word you were saying like a sponge.
Tanner Nelson
When I was getting ready to leave for college, he brought me and my sister Ashley out to the driveway and showed us how to check the oil in our car and change a flat tire. He could help with anything and wanted to make sure we could. He was just the best.
Shelby Tanner
I have so many memories of my grandpa. I always loved seeing his face bright up when I walked in the room. he always would say “did you miss me?” and I’d say “yeah” awkwardly, I've always loved him, but now Ii miss him more than I ever imagined I could.
Naomi Wortley
Those times are deep memories for me, and I love that time we spent together with him. He'd load up the 1980 Ford Econoline Van, his briefcase of music cassettes and take us on the long and winding summer drive south. One of my earliest memories was laying in between the front seats and listening to the Beatles' 'Ticket to Ride.' Something that I can still see and feel if I close my eyes. The sun passing through the window, my dad in the aviator sunglasses that he'd just purchased at the gas station ... the blue fabric of the chairs, my sisters laughing in the back. This was when we were still not really that concerned with seatbelts so we were always crawling around to play games or grab treats. I am sure those drives were intense for them, but they always felt magical to me.
We'd spend the days playing at the beach, and eating at the infamous Oceanside shack 'Gold Coast Chili Burgers.' At night we'd swim in the condo owned pool, and watch fireworks they'd shoot off at nights above the Del Mar Horse Racing track across the street. We'd watch movies and eat popcorn and have milkshakes. My dad was a pro at making those things, and it always tasted so good. We'd finish the trip by eating on the last night at the 'Fish Market' around the corner where we'd gobble up fried shrimp and other California sea fare. I am grateful for these sun-soaked memories with my family. Simple and beautiful time together.
He taught us to work hard, and was very generous with his time, money and affection. We all drove nicer cars than he did (we had 3 jeeps at one point), and even parked his van outside in the winter so my sister's jeep wouldn't be cold in the mornings when they drove to school. The garage was always full of wood and coal so that my mom could keep our house at a balmy 86 degrees year round. He could fix anything and everything, and always had a toolbox and a couple buckets of sprinkler parts in his van or truck. A few years ago my dad stopped by when I had someone at my house repairing some sprinkler parts that I had no idea (or interest in) how to fix. I can still see the crushing disappointment in his face.
He was always volunteering for church service projects and I think he was personally responsible for laying sod for half of the houses in our new neighborhood. I am grateful now for the time when we'd load his truck with garden tools and spend Saturdays working in not only our yard, but his mom's and some of the widows in the ward or on service days cleaning the church building or weeding it's many beds. During the winters he'd take the snow blower and make his way up and down our street and load it in his truck and do the same thing for the same people. He was incredibly thoughtful and compassionate, and always looking for someone to help. I can see this in my own life, and in the lives of Brady, Ashley and Shelby and their families. I am grateful that we had caring for people we love modeled for us, by him, from a very early age.
He bought us guitars and keyboards, and encouraged us to learn how to play. He took my brother and I to Wagstaff's music by Fashion Place mall on Saturdays to look at guitars, and inevitably one of those guitars or keyboards would be hiding behind the couch on Christmas morning. He took us to see The Beach Boys at BYU and Chet Atkins at Symphony Hall (later Abravanel) where we got to hear him play one of my dad's favorite songs 'Would Jesus Wear a Rolex.'
When we were in high school we used to drive on the snowy lawns at Quail Hollow or do donuts in the church parking lot. After scolding us one night and asking us to be more mindful of our things and other's property he disappeared. About an hour later he appeared in the doorway asking for one of us to take him back to the church where he'd gotten stuck in a snowbank on the lawn at the church. Amazing.
Eventually there were mission calls for Brady and me in California, and my sisters headed south to St. George for college. My dad was always there to answer distress calls, whenever, and in whatever way was needed. Sending me money when I was low during the mission years, and filling my sister's apartment at Dixie with Rice Chex and cleaning their bathroom whenever he'd visit them. He worried about us and cared for us. He paid our school tuition, and continued to support us well into adulthood, even after some of us were married. Always looking after and checking in on us. He was kind and thoughtful, often anticipating our needs before we even knew we had them. He was as constant as a clock during those years, and gave us so much runway to do the things we wanted in life, even though he had never really done that for himself. Like I mentioned above, I think he had imagined a different professional life for himself, but didn't do that and always expressed a little bit of guilt and regret that he hadn't. Sitting here in my house today on this beautiful October morning, I know everything I have and am is because of him. Because of things he did, and didn't do, and I am forever grateful.
During this time they moved his mom from her apartment to an assisted living facility where he'd stop and visit her almost every night on his way home from work and on weekends. She died in the summer of 1999 at the age of 92, and her death left a crater in his heart that would never fill. He loved her and she loved him with a love that was tangible to those around them. While I sat holding his head as he was dying I could see her in his face, and sometimes I can see her in the faces of my own children today.
After we had all left the house, my parents sold the Rockwell house and moved to the Olympus Cove area so my dad could be closer to work. They found a new community of friends, like they always did, wherever they lived and settled into an empty nest situation. Marriages and kids followed, and my parents had a deep love for the grandchildren that soon arrived. After being at Cove Point for some years they moved to Riverton to be closer to their grandchildren. Sunday dinners grew, and everything became chaotic and wonderful. He'd make roast beef and mashed potatoes (another favorite), and we'd sit around the table and laugh, much like I remember my dad and his siblings around his parents Sunday table when I was a kid. Family was everything to my dad, and he did his best to keep us all close, despite life's demands. We'd watch the World Series (he loved the New York Yankees) and the Super Bowl together and invite all of our friends. My dad made whatever house they lived in a gathering place for friends and family and I remember so many family reunions and celebrations in whatever home they were living in. It was always the most important thing in his life.


Left: My dad with Ashley's kids Naomi and Leo.
Right: My father, me and my sweet Jackie.
During this time my parents dealt with some pretty serious health issues with my mom, and eventually my dad started experiencing some complications with Diabetes that would follow him through the rest of his life. Life got busier and busier as life started to make larger demands raising children and balancing family and work. A friend noted once that life at this point is a 'high-wire act in the best of times' and that's exactly how it felt. I started working as a designer after studying photography (I used his beloved Canon Camera) at the University of Utah, and Brady followed his dreams and ambition into real estate and later starting his own brokerage that he still runs today. My sister Shelby graduated from the nursing program at Westminster and works at St. Marks Hospital caring for women with newborn babies (which she does better than anyone else), and my brilliant sister Ashley worked as an event planner and now runs a company making films about weddings with her husband Jared. She made all of the videos that you see here on this site and I am in awe of all their lives and talents. Each a unique soul following their hearts and dreams. I believe this is something he taught us to do, even though he had a hard time doing it for himself.
I think my dad was really proud of his children, although sometimes he really struggled with some of the choices some of us have made. I know now it's an incredibly difficult thing to watch your children carve their own path in the world. Especially when some of those choices lead you away from the path we thought they'd always follow. I do believe today, now that he's no longer here, we were never as far apart as I sometimes I felt and imagined he felt. He taught us so many beautiful truths that I still see evidence in all of our lives. A deep connection to family and responsibility in caring for the people in your charge. I see that in the generosity of my siblings, who are always searching for depth and meaning in their lives and the lives of their children. I see it in the way they care for their children and the opportunities and experiences they are sharing. I love them and see his life and love in everything they do. I can see it in my own children and writing this I can feel him here with me. His essence wrapped around me like a warm blanket.

Losing him was losing something fundamental. It's inarticulable and deep, and my heart is broken in way that I didn't know hearts could break. I mentioned in his obituary that his death left a canyon sized hole that we'll never see the edges of, and life will always be a little more blue than it was before he left, but I know that he's alive in the records and songs he taught me to love. He's alive in the faces of my children and his other grandchildren. He's alive in goodness and patience and generosity of Brady, Ashley and Shelby and their families. He's alive in the faces of his friends and loved ones that remain. In the spring i'll spread some of his ashes in my garden and some other places he loved and know that he'll remain in the atmosphere and in the stories and laughter we share together as family. The poet Maya Angelou articulated beautifully:
And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.
I think that's it, right? Leave it to the poets to articulate these beautiful things, written not so long ago, knowing that this grief and suffering is direct proportion to how much we allow ouselves to love and be loved. I love my father, and I know he loved me. I know he loved you, and I hope you know how lucky you were to know him.
As the last leaves are getting ready to fall, there's a fire in the fireplace, his urn sitting atop my piano, just outside the window, my beloved working the garden beds to prepare for, what surely wlll be, a long, cold, lonely winter. On the turntable ... The Beach Boys (a favorite of my father).
God only knows what I'd be without you. God only knows what we'd be without you.
We love you, Dad.

There are Places I Remember ...
Tho' I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them,
In my life I love you more.
- John Lennon ( In My Life )
by Ryan Tanner // October 21, 2024
The best of the best. A gentle, talented, selfless, steady, and wonderful man. He will be sorely missed.
Ralph Dewsnup
One of my best friends. How I loved this good man.
Dennis Emery
I spent many years playing music with Bruce and that time was precious to me. Bruce had a way of making everyone around him comfortable. His musical talent was exceptional and I will always cherish those moments together.
Wes Dewsnup
My grandpa tanner always remembered what food or treats you loved. He would spend hours on Sundays making his mashed potatoes perfect with no lumps because I didn’t like lumps in them. He would make shakes or homemade ice cream every single Sunday and make it just the way you liked it even if it took him 3 hours. He always made sure we knew how much he loves us and how proud of us he was whether that was in person or in a paragraph text.
Ireland Tanner
Honestly, there’s too many to count. I was so lucky to have Bruce as my grandpa for 21 years. He taught me so many amazing things and he always made me feel like this sparkling gem when I was at my worst. He taught me to love my family in the only way a Tanner could: by making sarcastic comments followed by a big squeeze. Love you Grandpa.
Delilah Tanner
I remember the first time Bruce took me and Brady and a bunch of friends to Asian Star for dinner. He had us order whatever we wanted and he was so genuinely happy to be there with us and join in on the conversation/ joking around. I remember thinking he was really wealthy and generous to be taking all of us out. Later I realized he was just very generous with whatever he could offer.
Aly Tanner