Author Description

Patty Sessions's 1847 Mormon Trail diary has been widely quoted and excerpted, but her complete diaries, including her chronicling of the first decades of Mormon settlement at Salt Lake City, have never before been published. They provide a detailed record of early Mormon community life from Illinois to Utah through the eyes of the community's most famous midwife. They also recount her important role in women's social networks and her contributions to community health and Utah's economy and to pioneer education and horticulture. Patty Sessions assisted at the births of hundreds of early Mormons and first-generation Utahns, meticulously recording the events. She was an active member of an elite circle of Mormon women and had a major role in the founding of the Relief Society, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' organization for women, and of other women's, beneficent, and health organizations. She established one of the earliest successful orchards in Utah; cuttings from her trees helped start many others. With returns from her profession of midwifery, from her orchards and gardens, from rented rooms, and from savvy investments, she built a small fortune, supporting herself (she spent many years living alone), relatives, and often her husbands (of which, over time, she had three, counting her "sealing" to Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith). She returned much of her capital to the community by endowing schools and Mormon temples. Her diaries are a rich resource for early Mormon and Utah history. A virtual treasure trove for genealogists, they also contain valuable information on life and society in Winter Quarters, along the trail west, in Salt Lake City, and in Bountiful, Utah, which her son Perrigrine founded and where she lived out her last years.