The Short Life of Maud Mary Weatherald, Goderich, Ontario, circa 1882

I found this lovely, but sad, carte de visite photograph today at the antique shop in a nearby town.  Sad, because of the inscription on the reverse of the photograph that reads, "Maud Mary Weatherald, Died Dec 19th 1882, aged 17 years & 8 mos."  Sad, because this young girl did not live much past the time this photograph was taken.

I had a quick look at the 1871 Census of Canada, for Huron South and found Maud living in Goderich, Huron, Ontario with her parents Thomas and Maria Weatherald, and her siblings Thomas, age 9; Anne, 8; Edith, 4; and Fanny, 2.

I also found her death record in Ontario Deaths, 1869-1938 and discovered that the cause of death was listed as diabetes.

Maud is buried in Maitland Cemetery, Goderich.   Her gravestone has been photographed and placed on the Canada GenWeb Cemetery Project site.  The stone provides us with her birthdate:  May 11, 1865.

Along with this photograph I also found cdvs of Maud's grand-uncle, Mr. Marwood, as well as of John Marwood, which I will post later.   These Marwoods were originally from Whitby, Yorkshire, England.

I don't know if there might be something about the Marwoods and Weatheralds in The Township of Goderich History book. If anyone has a copy, I'd really appreciate it if you could have a look and see if these families appear.


UPDATE September 17, 2014:  All of the Weatherald/West/Marwood family photos have been reunited with a direct descendant in Saskatchewan.