Patty Sessions

Common Roles/Uncommon Lives »

An unsung Mormon woman of the nineteenth century. Shortly after her marriage, Sessions stepped in, untrained, to help her sick mother-in-law deliver a baby – the first of 3,997 babies she would deliver over her lifetime. Sessions converted to Mormonism in 1834 and moved to Nauvoo, where she experienced a multitude of challenges, including polygamy. Despite these challenges, Sessions was known as a woman of great faith, power, and independence. She drove her own team to Salt Lake City only two months after the vanguard company in 1847. Once in Utah, Sessions moved to Bountiful, where she spent the last three decades of her life as a widow. Later she was elected president of the Indian Relief Societies, an organization devoted to helping impoverished Native Americans, and she established the Patty Sessions Academy, a free school for the community.
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