Sandra Tanner discusses one of the most intriguing episodes in Mormon history: her early inquiry into the missing 1832 First Vision account. (She didn’t know it was missing at the time. The account was allegedly ripped out of the Joseph Smith journal by Church Historian Joseph Fielding Smith. This pursuit led Sandra directly into correspondence with Joseph Fielding Smith, then Church Historian, concerning what she believed was the original, definitive record of Joseph Smith’s earliest spiritual experience.

https://youtu.be/1pDKtA4RfmE

Don’t miss our other conversations with Sandra: https://gospeltangents.com/people/sandra-tanner

Copyright © 2025

Gospel Tangents

All Rights Reserved

0:00 Tanner’s Secret Polygamy
4:57 Sandra’s Teen LDS Experiences
19:06 Sandra’s Role in Missing First Vision Account?

The Path to Critical Inquiry

Sandra Tanner’s journey into questioning Mormon orthodoxy was significantly shaped by her mother, who was already deep into researching early Mormonism in the late 1950s. Sandra’s mother insisted on finding chapter and verse for religious claims, refusing to simply take the word of “the brethren” or rely solely on church manuals, often disrupting Sunday school classes with her inquisitive mind.

Sandra’s first met Jerald Tanner in the 1950s. He introduced her to David Whitmer’s thinking and the ideas of Pauline Hancock’s group, the Church of Christ-Bible & Book of Mormon). This set the stage for intense study.

A major focal point of this research was the nature of God and how the changing views of God affected the narrative of the First Vision. Sandra noted that the Book of Mormon, in its earliest form, presented a view of God that did not align with the current Mormon understanding of a separate Father and Son.

Conflicting First Vision Narratives

As Sandra, Jerald, and her mother poured over available documents, they focused on inconsistencies surrounding the First Vision:

Fawn Brodie’s Observation: The first edition of No Man Knows My History had raised the issue that the earliest references to an experience before the 1823 angel Moroni visitation often seemed to refer only to an angel or messenger, not the Father and Son. The Historical Record Change: Sandra’s aunt acquired a copy of Andrew Jensen’s Historical Record (from the 1880s), which contained an account where Joseph went into the woods to pray and a “messenger, an angel” appeared to him. However, her aunt’s copy was a later reprint (circa 1890 or 1891) that changed the text to say “the Christ appears to him,” raising questions about when the shift occurred and why the Father was excluded in that version.

Sandra and her associates reasoned that if the First Vision story was constantly evolving, they needed to see the genesis of the account.

The Letter & Missing 1832 First Vision Account

In the early 1960s (circa 1961), Sandra, Jerald, and her mother formulated a letter outlining these historical questions to be sent to then-Church Historian, Joseph Fielding Smith. Sandra simply assumed that an initial written account must exist and requested a photocopy of the “original Joseph Smith handwritten account of the First Vision”.

Little did Sandra know that some people, like her friend Lamar Peterson, did know about a “strange account” (the 1832 version) that had been shown to him by Levi Edgar Young, who was sworn to secrecy by Joseph Fielding Smith.

Sandra’s request, though based on assumption, might have caused immediate alarm in the Church Historian’s Office. Sandra speculates that Joseph Fielding Smith had previously cut the 1832 account out of the ledger book because he realized it was problematic. When Smith received Sandra’s letter, he may have assumed she possessed insider knowledge. To get ahead of any arguments about hiding evidence, Smith subsequently taped the pages back into the ledger book.

“I think he cut it out back in the time of Levi Edgar Young. I mean, this is my assumption that at that time he cut it out because he realized it was problematic and he didn’t want anyone else coming across this.”

Joseph Fielding Smith’s Rebuke

Joseph Fielding Smith did not send Sandra the document she requested. Instead, he wrote back to her bishop (Bishop Warren Kennedy). When the bishop read the response to Sandra, the letter was highly critical, asserting that if the “young woman would stop listening to the enemies of the church and seek for a testimony instead, she wouldn’t have these kind of questions“. Smith went on to call Sandra out for her “apostate spirit”.

Crucially, Smith ended the letter with a curious line: ” if I showed her such a thing would that even convince her”.

Sandra realized later that this specific wording was used because Smith knew that the 1832 account—which primarily details Christ appearing to Joseph (not the Father and Son)—would not convince her to return to the mainstream narrative but would actually reinforce her argument about the shifting view of God.

The controversy over the 1832 account, however, did eventually enter official channels. Joseph Fielding Smith utilized Paul Cheesman’s BYU thesis in 1965 as the official mode for publication, allowing the church to place the account on the record and refute arguments that they were hiding history.

What do you think of Sandra’s recounting?

Don’t miss our other conversations with Sandra: https://gospeltangents.com/people/sandra-tanner

Copyright © 2025

Gospel Tangents

All Rights Reserved