William Hutchins Tanner died peacefully at home on May 26, 2013. He died of prostate cancer and also suffered from Alzheimers disease. He was born on January 1, 1931 and ask he liked to say, "It was so noisy, he had trouble sleeping." His parents divorced when he was four years old and he was send to live with his grandmother in Southern Virginia. Growing up during the Depression on a dirt poor farm, he recalled that his family survived by the grace of the Taylor pork roll family who sent shipments of food by rail. When his mother relocated to Washington, DC, he and his sister Muriel (Betty) lived in a house that his grandfather Truesdell owned and ran as a rooming house. It was during the war, and living near Union Station, that Bill honed his sales talent, selling Liberty magazines. Summers and fre- quently for years, he travelled back to the Virginia farm and eventually graduated from high school there. He married at age 19 to Shirley McKay, with home he had three children. During 1950, he joined the Army, serving two years stateside. While working for Southern Railway, he earned his BS degree in Business from George Washington University and credits the government's GI Bill for launching his successful career as a pharmaceutical representative and his 38 years as a stock broker for Merrill Lynch. For the past 50 years, Mr. Tanner had lived in Baden, MD on his farm and a Christmas Tree operation which he started as a family operation during a happy time of year. Forty years ago he married Lucretia Dewey, who survives him, and together they traveled the work and enjoyed theater and the opera. He is survived by his sons, William Thomas Tanner, a physician in Fort Washington, MD, Robert Tanner, an accountant for the Smithsonian and daughter, Cynthia Rawlings, and grandchildren Christopher Tanner, Sarah Tanner, Elizabeth Tanner, Jacob Rawlings and Joshua Rawlings. A viewing will be held at Huntt Funeral Home, 3035 Old Washington Rd., Waldorf, MD, on Thursday, May 30, 2013 from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Another visitation will be held at Farrar Funeral Home, 1260 N. Mecklenburg Ave., South Hill, VA, on Saturday, June 1, 2013 from 10 to 11 a.m., with the funeral service beginning at 11 a.m. Burial to follow. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Tanner Endowed Scholarship Fund established by William and Lucretia Tanner for veterans returning to study at George Washington University.In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Tanner Endowed Scholarship Fund established by William and Lucretia Tanner for veterans returning to study at George Washington University.