MORMON MIDWIVES By Claire Noall* There is a legend that nine babies were born on the banks of the Mississippi River among the hundred exiles who left Nauvoo the first night of the Mormon Exodus from that city, February 4th, 1846.1 No such legend is needed to exalt the annals of that memorable crossing. Snow lay "shoe-deep" 2 on the ground. The swirling current of the river was filled with blocks of slush, fast turning to ice in the rapidly falling temperature. Sub-zero weather prevailed during the succeeding crossings until at last the river was completely frozen over. Tents and covered wagons were the only shelter the ever-increasing emigrants knew. The first births recorded in the L. D. S. Church Journal History, the manuscript account as kept by Thomas Bullock at the time, is that of a child born to Jackson Redden, February 25th, 1846. And in the journal of Patty Sessions, we read: "February 25, 1846, Wednesday. Lie very cold this morning. Put Jackson Redding's (Redden's) wife to bed with a son. Thursday 26. So cold I could hardly stir." Time and again, the record of births in the Journal History coincides with Mrs. Sessions' account. It was indeed rightly that Patty was called "Mother Sessions", for it was she who might truly be considered the great Mother of Mormon Midwifery. Beginning thus early, this entire story covers a period of nearly one hundred years, for the midwife is in demand in some of the outlying settlements even today. For example, Mrs. Mina Hinman of Hurricane, Utah, serves her village and those of her vicinity near the mouth of Zion Canyon; and mother's helpers are available in every other outlying community, as well as in the larger cities. P a t t y Sessions— Patty Bartlett Sessions was born in Bethel, Maine, February 4, 1795. She was married to David Sessions at the age of seventeen. At this time she commenced her practice of midwifery. Twenty-two years later, she joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (Mormon Church). In 1836, she and her husband, who had also been baptized a Mormon, left their home in Maine to join the gathering of the Church in Ohio. From there they moved to Missouri where they lost $1200.00 in land and $400 in livestock and corn when the Saints were driven from the State in 1838. Leaving the Missouri farm in the depths of winter, they stayed at one place on the road for fourteen days with nothing to eat but parched corn. Reaching Quincy, Illinois they continued to Nauvoo where they made a comfortable home, •Copyright, 1942, by Claire Noall, author of "Pioneer Women Doctors of Utah" series, in Improvement Era, Salt Lake City, Utah. 1. Edward W. Tullidge, Women of Mormondoin, pp. 802, 307. 2. Eliza R. Snow's Manuscript Journal, February 28, 1896. Possession Mr. LeRoi C. Snow.
84
