Tom Spears: Dead at age one — What childhood looked like before vaccines

Little John Graham died near Ottawa in Canada’s Confederation year at the age of one. But the family had fresh hope when his sister Margareta arrived. Article content

She died at 14. Article content

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Both are buried in a tiny cemetery that served a rural community, until Nepean grew around it. Today the Bells Corners Union Cemetery has heritage status — early Canadian history literally carved in stone.

The 19th-century stones also tell of Mildred Moore, who died one year old; Ellen Robertson, four; brothers William and John Davidson, five weeks and four years; Margaret Bell, 13; Mary Richardson, two; Willie Lafloor, 14; and more.

The early 1900s weren’t much kinder. Robert and Sarah Davidson lost their daughter Mary in 1924 and son Lorne in 1940