Like most genealogists, I love cemeteries. I’ve been to St. Charles Cemetery in Winnipeg several times to photograph gravestones. Well, to be honest, my husband is the willing photographer.
There are many graves in St. Charles that belong to the McMillan and Hogue families. I’ve written previously about the family of my great-great-grandfather William McMillan and his wife Margaret Dease here. They are buried in this cemetery, as are some of their children, and grandchildren.
It’s always emotional to come upon a child’s grave. Sadly, there are several in this cemetery and I decided that the time had come to research exactly where these children belonged in the family tree.
This grave certainly tugs at the heart strings. Two cousins dying within two days of each other! The fathers, John and Patrick were brothers, sons of William, and thus brothers to my great-grandmother Philomene McMillan (Pépère’s mother).
This combined gravestone is for John James McMillan, age 7, son of John McMillan and Virginie Bruce and for Patrick McMillan, age 4, son of Patrick McMillan and Elizabeth Caplette. The four-year-old is one of those children who was born and died between census years, so without the gravestone we would never even know he existed!
I wondered if there was a rash of deaths in November of 1897 and went looking for newspaper articles. I found this.
The Winnipeg Tribune, 31 Dec 1897, Fri, Page 8
Then I found their obituaries and discovered they both died of diphtheria.
The Winnipeg Tribune, 27 Nov 1897, Sat, Page 4
This second one is for Patrick, whose father was misidentified as Alex.
The Winnipeg Tribune, 30 Nov 1897, Tue, Page 4
This wasn’t the first child that Patrick McMillan and Elizabeth Caplette had buried. Their second-born son, also called Patrick, had died at 11 months in 1881.
I found no obituary for this Patrick.
Patrick and Elizabeth’s son William John, married to Maria Breland, also suffered through the death of two children in the same month, July 1907.
The Winnipeg Tribune, 27 Jul 1907, Sat, Page 7
Again, the newspaper has misidentified the father.
Joseph McMillan (brother to John and Patrick) and his wife, Pauline Bruce, buried a 22-year-old daughter, Mary Jane, in 1893, a 14-year- old son, Frederick, in 1898, and a 23-year-old married daughter, Mary Ann Alice, in 1902.
I’ve found no obituaries for Violet, Frederick, Mary Jane, or Mary Ann Alice.
Obviously, some of these gravestones are not original. Presumably family members at some point replaced the original markers.
These graves are a poignant reminder of the hardships our ancestors faced.
As Canadian as can be 
Bonjour to my 4th cousin! William and Margaret are also my great-great-grand-parents through their daughter Virginie. I had the opportunity to go to the St. Charles cemetery earlier this year and noticed many of the same grave markers. Yes life was hard back then. We have much to be thankful for in modern medicine. Given the child mortality rates and the difficult life on the prairies in the 19th century, it’s amazing that William and Margaret had such long lives! Thanks for posting.
– Patrice Carrière, Ottawa