I grew up in a largely Mormon area of Southern Nevada and Utah. When I studied midwifery most of my mentors were local Mormon midwives. When I gave birth to my first son a Mormon midwife “caught” him. After the birth of my son I joined a local natural mothering group. The group had been started by a Mormon mother and doula (birth assistant), and it seemed that the women in the group were either half Mormon or pagan. I thought it was interesting how so many Mormon mamas I knew gave birth at home.
Later as my son grew and as I joined in other Mormon community events I saw so many moms who were either Mormon or raised Mormon having home births. I thought perhaps it was the area I lived in but after moving to Northern California I observed the same thing. Friends of mine had Mormon sisters, friends and co-workers across the country and so many of them were birthing at home. It seemed the highest rate of home birthing women I knew outside of the hippie and pagan communities.
I always wondered why this was and after some investigation it all seemed to come together. A tradition rooted in herbal medicine, natural healing, women healers, distrust of doctors, domestic empowerment of women and an emphasis on family and community, lent itself to an easier home birthing culture for Mormon women.
Patty Bartlett Sessions, a pioneer Mormon midwife recorded this entry on March 21st, 1846; “Zina had a son at the river. Comfortable. Traveled four miles. Double teams up and camped. It rains tonight.” This baby boy was born exactly 132 years before I was. His birth was greeted as a sacred, every day event, happening at the bank of a river as the Mormons walked their way across America (Noall 24).
Joseph Smith, we already know, came from a magickal family and his mother worked her magick to heal setting a path for Joseph to prefer the nurturing power of women healers. When Joseph’s younger sister fell ill the local doctors told the family to give her up for dead. Lucy Smith would not have it. She scooped up her tiny daughter and paced back and forth praying for her recovery. The little girl got better and her excellent health became a light in the life of young Joseph – a lesson in the power of women to heal spiritually (Noal 16).
The Smith family did not all fair as well as Joseph’s sister. His brother Alvin died from an obstruction in his bowel caused by a strong dose of calomel for colic administered by a doctor. This turned Smith toward a natural healing philosophy of the time called the Thomsonian method. Tomsonian is from, Samuel Thomson, who did not agree with the conventional physicians of the time. Thomson developed his own theory based on natural healing and herbal medicine (Brady 88).
By the time the Word of Wisdom, a code of Mormon health, was revealed by God to Joseph Smith, Joseph was a firm believer in Thomsonian medicine. The Word of Wisdom is very in tune with the practice of midwifery and directs herbs to be used in the healing of disease (Brady 88). The Word of Wisdom was given as a health code for all Mormons however Smith also directed midwives to use it in particular. He “set apart” Ann Carling, a midwife in Nauvoo, IL, and while laying his hands upon her head he told her that she would be successful in caring for the sick if she would use herbs exclusively in her work (Brady 88).
Early Mormons especially regarded these codes of health and many still do. These laws of health, they believe, come from God. To disobey the laws of health, such as the Word of Wisdom, would be to sin against their Heavenly Father (Brady 85). Following the Word of Wisdom and Thomsonian methods as well as Joseph’s divine directives, three midwives total were set apart during the Mormons stay in Nauvoo, IL. Using the same method discussed for Ann Carling, Joseph also placed his hands on the heads of Patty Sessions and Vienna Jaques, anointing them and directing them not only as midwives for the women but community healers as well (Noall 16).
Patty Sessions and Vienna Jacques were women of priestly authority following their anointing. They used their skills both herbally and spiritually to assist in birth and to heal the Mormon pioneers who walked from the east to Utah, ending in the Salt Lake basin (Noall 18). So effective were their abilities to heal and so great was the confidence place in them by their fellow Mormons, that often when doctors attempted to assist in difficult situations Mormon men would slam the door in their face (Noall 18).
In the early days of Utah Mormon settlements, midwives were, as Margaret K. Brady puts it, the feminist alternative to regular medicine (Brady 87). Midwives were the voice of authority in Utah and held a mystical place for their patients (Noall 15). Intertwined with spirituality the midwives and other women blessed each other often. Eliza Snow, a woman whom we will remember had been given the priesthood and had revelations on Heavenly Mother, is known to have blessed midwife Patty Bartlett on the occasion of her birthday (Noall 33).
Mormon midwife healers lived in the land that their Book of Mormon described and they knew through their spiritual beliefs that the thistle and sage growing in the hills around them had once been used by the Nephites, one of the early American tribes according to The Book of Mormon (Noall 16). This speaks to the midwives deep connection with the land on which they lived and they knew through their faith that the earth would heal them.
