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His other two brothers were quite short but he was tall and slender and took after his father in his built.
He loved the farm and as Cordon and Burnell had married, and his father was not too well, the early training as a boy helped him to carry most of the responsibilities of the farm when he was still quite young. He not only kept the small farm up, but kept wood and coal for his mother to cook with, supplied on the back porch. He was very good to his mother and did what he could to help her. After his father passed away on the 3rd of May 1938, he took over as the head of the house and assumed all the chores and things needed to be done. His mother insisted doing the large vegetable garden and keeping up the flowers. Still, Ervin, who was almost 28, shouldered most of the responsibility.
Dale and Ruth also lived with them and Dale has some fond memories of Ervin. Here are his feelings about him. Dale writes, “The things I remember about Ervin aren’t as many as it should be. I know Ervin was a boy at heart, as he would play all kinds of games with us, track, softball, basketball, football and other games. I also remember him as a loving caring man like when the ram sheep knocked Ruth over when we were playing softball. He was going to teach it a lesson so he took a club and knocked the horns off its head.
I remember when he fought Todd to see who was going to discipline me. Todd won out and so did I that day. Ervin used to grab me by the hair of the head and kick me in the seat of the pants. One day I shaved my head. Ervin could kick me but he couldn’t grab me by the hair of the head, even though he tried
Ervin and I would kill and clean the animals. I would shoot a steer between the eyes and he would cut its throat. One day I shot the steer and he cut its throat, but the steer ran around the yard just a bellowing. After that I didn’t like shooting them. We would brand and castrate cattle and sheep. This is where I learned to eat Rocky Mountain oysters.
Irvin was a good worker and he loved his family very much, which he proved by giving his life trying to save them. I honestly believe he would have liked to have been a rancher if we hadn’t lost so much property during the depression. He liked to work around animals.
If I remember right, Ervin set the barn on fire, I set Ruth’s paper dolls on fire. We did some crazy things.”
Ruth remembers, “Ervin loved vinegar candy and would pay anyone 10 cents to make it and grandma would furnish the sugar and vinegar.”
Bart Moulton, who lived near the Sessions while growing up, gives his recollections: “I remember the Sessions family as dear friends. After Anita and I married, we lived just through the block from Erv and Mavis. Anita remembers seeing Mavis hanging clothes on the line after washing them and seeing them billowing in the breeze.
Erv used to work with my father, A. C. Moulton and me and Dewey Moulton in the summer, especially when he was out of work at the mines, and we always had work for him to do. I enjoyed being with him. He was a wonderful man, a good father, and he loved his family.
My mother, Catherine Moulton, used to put up lunches for all of us to take to the field and we did enjoy those days so much. We had lots of sandwiches, cucumbers and tomatoes, all washed. We would take our pocket knives and cut them for lunch. Erv was always a good eater, besides being a hard worker.
None of us had much money to spend on ourselves, but whatever we had we shared with one another. We were all born of goodly parents, and we enjoyed life the best we could with what we had. Aunt Mae and Tobe were real good neighbors and were always helping out people who were in need.
We remember your parents and you children well, and remember the tragedy in the family, and have good memories of the Sessions family. We have love and respect for them. My wife and I love you good people-you have all touched our lives very much.”
He loved sports and there were always a lot of guys and a few gals who played baseball every day in the summer by their house. He was quite a kid at heart. He never learned to drive a car, probably could not have afforded one. He rarely went to movies or did most things that single fellows do. He finally did meet a girl in Park City, Utah who was much his junior, but they fell in love and were married 26 April 1941 at Coalville, in Summit County, Utah. He was 30 and Mavis Farley was just 15 years old. She was a pretty girl and also a blond with blue eyes. They were happy. He worked in the mines, along with keeping up with cows to milk and a horse to ride, which he loved to do. Of course there were chickens, pigs, etc. to take care of as well.
Ervin was ready to settle down. Working in the mines and doing the chores did not give him much time to rest and he enjoyed just staying at home. Mavis was young and liked to go and do things. It was hard for her. She became pregnant and on April 6, 1942, she had Clifton Ervin Sessions, then on March 28, 1943, Raymond Sidney came along. Ella May was born May 3, 1944, Judith Anne was born April 5, 1946, Rose Marie born July 19, 1947, Steven born April 23, 1949, and Mark in 1950.
Mavis was a loving person, very sweet, but having so many children so fast took its toll and was more than she could handle. She took to serious drinking.
The ones who did not go to school (the 3 who were killed in the fire) would visit their Grandma Sessions every day. They always held each others hands as they walked. Judy would always lead them. They were such sweet children and their grandmother loved them very much.
On November 15, 1951, Ervin had returned home from the night shift at the mines and was out milking his cows, when he looked up and saw smoke coming out of the roof. He ran to the house, opened the upstairs door and ran up the stairs. He had put aluminum siding around the outside of the house thinking it would keep the house warmer, but the smoke could not get through the metal so when the door was opened, and oxygen got in, it was like an inferno. The fire almost gutted through the building before it burst through the roof. The four younger children were upstairs playing. Ervin rolled the baby down the stairs to his mother who was washing clothes. She quickly placed Mark outside the house. He was not injured. He rolled Rose Marie down the stairs. Mavis tried to quench the flames that had enveloped Rose Marie. Ervin ran for Judy and Steven. Before he could reach them, he fell to the floor and the three of them were burned to death. He got to within arms reach of one child. Rose Marie had 2nd and 3rd degree burns all over her body and died later in the Heber Hospital.
Mavis was hysterical and in a state of shock. She could not give a coherent answer for some time. She was taken to the hospital, treated for shock and released. Later she told the officers, as best she could, what had happened.
Investigators stated the fire probably started by an overheated chimney. The town rallied to help. School children donated money and clothes, miners gave a days pay to help with expenses and hopefully to save for the children's future.
Joint funeral services were held in the LDS tabernacle.
This was also a terrible tragedy for Ervin’s mother and family, especially his mother. Her faith in eternal families and her God, carried her through, but her heart was aching inside. Her thoughts now were turned towards the living, Mavis and the family and what could be done to help them. She cried many hours, wondering what she could do for the family, but came to the conclusion that she was too old to take care of them, even though she wanted to keep them and love them.
Authorities felt the environment was not good for the children because of Mavis drinking problem and so the children were taken away from her. Cliff and Ray went to Oakland, California, to live with Cordon and Pearl. Ella went to San Francisco to live with Rose and Dick. Mark was given to Lizzie and she later adopted him. Pearl wanted to adopt the two boys but Cordon told her point blank, “I’ll not rob my brother of his children.” He wanted to do what he could to raise them right, but he felt they belonged to Ervin eternally. Cordon’s daughter, Eva, wanted brothers and even sisters, but she fully understood how her father felt and knew her father was right, even though she would rather have had it the other way.
At his funeral, Ervin, was called a hero. In the newspapers, they expounded his heroic deeds, but Ervin was just trying to save his children with no thought of his own life. He really did die a hero.
Life was hard for Mavis without her husband and her children. The church offered to rebuild her house if she would stop drinking and take proper care of them. She wanted that so much but knew she could not make such a promise.
She later married a man by the name of Jessie North and they lived together at his home for many years before he died. Cordon and Pearl took Cliff and Ray to Heber every year so Mavis could see them and she thanked them for taking care of her sons. After Mr. North died, Mavis took an inventory of her life, and decided she needed to change. She stopped drinking, period. The suddenness was too much for her body. She tried to change her life too fast and at 62 years she died August 14, 1988, at home.