"We bade our children and friends good bye and started for the west. I knitted almost a mitten for Mr Sessions while he went back to get some things we left".
Patty was born
in maine in 1795 and married David Sessions in 1812. They were farmers, and they had 8 children together.
She delivered her first baby around 1812, by accident (she was an assistant to her mother in law), and was told by the obstetrician who arrived later that she was a natural and would be successful if she “continued in the business”
She was baptized along with her husband in 1834, when she was 26. She was called to go with the original mormon pioneer company heading West and arrived in SLC in 1947 when she was 52.
Her journals are accurate and important historical records for the young church. She kept them meticulously every day for 20 years, and recorded almost 4000 births, 248 of these were within the first year she lived in SLC.
On top of that, every day of her life was filled with hard work and service to others. Her entries were full of trips to attend women at all hours, bringing food to sick neighbors, knitting, planting, harvesting, and visiting.
An excerpt from Patty's journal shows some her remedies, and the range of illnesses she was called on to treat, as well as her midwifery duties.
salve for old sores: Bark of indigo weed
boiled down, beeswax, mutton tallow, and a very little rosin
Jaundice: Take one tablespoon
of castile soap shavings, mixed with sugar, for three mornings, then miss three
and continue until it has been taken 9 days, a sure cure
Bowel Complaint: take one teaspoonful
rhubarb, one fourth carbonate
of soda, one tablespoon brandy, one teaspoon peppermint essence, half teacupful warm water, take
tablespoonful once an hour until it operates
Vomiting: 6 drops laudanum,
the size of a pea of soda, two teaspoons peppermint essence, 4 cups of water;
take a tablespoonful at a time until it stops. If the first does don’t repeat it
Heartburn:
laudanum, carbonate
soda, ammonia, sweet oil, camphor. Also for milk leg infection and
sweating
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