Happy Pioneer Day!
While I can only recall celebrating 2 Pioneer Days in my entire life (having grown up in Montana not Utah) but I am a big fan of doing so. We are celebrating today with a picnic (or it is a convenient way to excuse our picnic?)
Meet my Great-great-great-grandmother Patty Bartlett Sessions "Mormon Midwife."
She didn't actually arrive in Salt Lake on July 24, 1847 but arrived September 24, 1847 having stayed behind at Winter Quarters (I like to think to deliver babies.) "She recorded 3,977 births with only 'two difficult cases.'" Stick that in your OB's pipe along with his 33% cesarean rate and tell him to smoke it.
I feel a great affinity with Patty due to my love of home births and midwives as well as our mutual mad knitting skills (see photo.) We all like to think we got our looks from the other side of the family.
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5 comments:
love the photo!
No offense...but that is one scary looking midwife. I like my midwives to look a bit cozier...
I'm sure your looks must have come from some other line. That said, it is a great picture.
Of course she's knitting for a portrait!
I'm sure in her younger years she looked better. I guess without lotions and potions that is what you look like when you get old.
I have to agree with crashhanna...I'd be a bit unnerved to be in labor and look down to see those eyes looking back. Still though, 4000 babies caught, apparently she was pretty good at what she did. ;)
For what it's worth, I've never been fond of Pioneer Day because it's right after my birthday...and (especially in UT, but most anywhere with large groups of mormons) I get pretty ignored in all the hubub of picnics and stories of handcarts and people burying their babies. Um, can we just be happy people, and maybe have a ward party some other week? Like solstice...that's a nice time for a party. :p
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