Daughter of Enoch Bartlett and Anna Hall

Married - David Sessions, 13 Jun 1812, Newery, Oxford, Maine

Children - Asa Sessions, Amanda Sessions, Anna B. Sessions, David Sessions, Sylvannus Sessions, Perrigrine Sessions, Sylvia Porter Sessions, Porter Sessions, Bartlett Sessions

Married - John Parry, 14 Dec 1851, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah

History - Patty Bartlett was married to David Sessions at the age of seventeen, and it was at this time that she commenced the practice of midwifery. Twenty-two years later she joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In 1836 she and her husband, who had 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 all they possessed when the Saints were driven from that state in 1838. Leaving the farm in the middle of winter, they stayed at one place along the road for fourteen days with nothing to eat but parched corn. Upon their arrival in Nauvoo, Illinois they made a comfortable home.

Patty was the mother of three children, David, Sylvia and Perrigrine. When she was fifty-two years of age she and her husband left Winter Quarters for the trek westward, arriving in Salt Lake City in 1847. Their first home was on the present site of the Union Pacific Railroad Station. Perrigrine and his family went north of the Old Fort in Salt Lake City where they founded the city of Bountiful, then called Sessions Settlement.

On August 11, 1850, Mr. Sessions passed away. Patty later became the wife of John Parry, but during all the years of her medical career she was known as Patty or "Mother Sessions." Although this great humanitarian work kept her exceedingly busy she found time to attend to the needs of her home and family. She skillfully accomplished all the tasks of a pioneer homemaker. Later she moved into a new home on the banks of City Creek at North Temple and Fourth West Streets where she resided until she moved to Bountiful, in 1872. There she built a fine brick home and later a schoolhouse called the "Patty Sessions Academy," where her grandchildren and the poor children of the locality were admitted without cost.

It is recorded that "Mothers Sessions" delivered 3,977 babies, one of the largest number of births attended by any woman in Utah Territory. Her son Perrigrine had seven wives and fifty-five children; David was the father of ten children, and Sylvia, four living children. Patty traveled to Bountiful when she was living in Salt Lake City to take care of the mothers of most of her grandchildren and some of her great grandchildren.

Mrs. Sessions entered many accounts in a day-book which shows that she made good money on her farm and orchards and they reveal interesting lights on the way in which she paid her tithes. Several times she gave funds for the purchase of oxen to bring the poor to Zion and help them when they arrived. She developed the Sessions plum, which is sold on the Utah market today. Her life span covered almost a century, for had she lived fifty-three more days she would have been ninety-nine years old.

Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, Daniel Spencer/Perrigrine Sessions Company (1847)