Jessie Pearl Jessen

Lyrad Riley - Shirley McConkie - Ilene Jenkins - Jessie Pearl Jessen

My Grandmother, Jessie Pearl Jessen, was born prematurely on Dec. 19, 1891, in a time when most very tiny infants did not survive.  The midwife attending the birth thought her to be stillborn, and as her mother had many problems at the time of delivery the midwife’s attention was all on the mother.  Later, she heard a little sound from the baby, so she wrapped her in a soft cloth and put her in a shoe-box which was placed on the open oven door of a wood stove.  They later told my grandmother she probably weighed about 2 to 2 ½ lbs at birth. She appeared to be bluish and cold, so the midwife placed the solid metal iron, (called a “sad-iron”), which was always on the back of the stove, behind her back to warm her a little.  There wasn’t enough fabric between the baby and the old sad iron, and she was severely burned on her delicate newborn skin.  The midwife became frightened when she saw the burn on Grandma’s back, and fearing what my Great Grandfather Jessen might do, she rubbed flour into the burn to make it look paler.  After the midwife left to go home, and her father discovered the flour-filled burn, he tenderly tried to brush the flour away and work it out of the wound with his soft bristled shaving brush.  Fortunately the burn healed without any further infection for the tiny infant.  As my grandmother grew, so did the scar from the burn, and it covered most of her back from her neck to her hips.  She started out tiny, with odds against her survival, but lived a long and productive life until she was 90 years old.  I know what a great blessing it was in my life to have her for a grandmother.  –written by Shirley Riley, Dec. 2003