In memoriam: Those we lost to Tuberculosis

Leonard Cusack’s presentation was excellent yesterday and we had our highest turnout yet at 70 people, including folks with ancestral connections to staff or patients at the sanatorium in Emyvale. Leonard did a thorough job of capturing this important and all but forgotten time in our history in the book, A Magnificent Gift Declined: The Dalton Sanatorium of Prince Edward Island, available at the UPEI Bookstore.

So many young lives were cut short with TB in the early part of the last century and, in some cases, parents lost many of their children. To honour their brief lives, I thought we could gather some names of those from Clyde River and neighbouring communities on our website as a memorial.

Please send information to vivian@eastlink.ca. Include their names, parent’s or spouse’s name, the year of their death and their age or as much of this information as you have. We also welcome you to send photos and add any memories or stories you know of them. Please check back to this page as we build our memorial.

-Amy Ann Beer Mayhew, died 1904, age 29, daughter of James and Mary Ann (Livingstone) Beer, and her husband Alfred Edward Mayhew, died 1900, age 29. They were married in 1895. (picture featured)

“…He was patiently and tenderly nursed by his wife. Three years later her own health began to fall and it soon became apparent that the disease which has claimed her husband had fastened itself upon her, also.” (newspaper clipping)

-Angus and Jane Darrach lost seven children to Tuberculosis: Hector (age 19 1862), Sarah (age 30 1865), Mary (age 22 1866), Jane (age 19 1866), Angus (age 19 1866), Archibald (age 19 1870) and Duncan (age 26 1875). Buried St. Catherine’s Pioneer Cemetery

-In letters of Mary Ann MacDougall Darrach, she mentions in a March 17, 1905 letter the death of Mabel Cruwys from Kingston who lived in Boston and was only married 6 months to John Edwards before she died of consumption. Buried Kingston Cemetery.