John William
Peterson appeared in only four records during his short life. He was born to
Leopold and Caroline (Neilson) Peterson on 3 June 1876 in Boston, Suffolk,
Massachusetts[i].
He was the second child and first son born into the marriage. He was baptized
in the Emanuel Lutheran Church of Roxbury, Suffolk, Massachusetts on 9 July
1876[ii].
It is noted in the record that neither of his parents were members of the church
and his father is listed as L P Peterson.
In 1880,
John is recorded living with his parents at 520 W Superior Street in Chicago,
Cook, Illinois. Also, in the household
were his older sister Annie and younger brother Francis (Frank).[iii]
The final
record that John appeared in was the Cook County, Illinois, Deaths Index,
1878-1922 which yields the information that John Wm Paterson, age 9, died on 7
June 1885 in Chicago and is buried at Graceland Cemetery.[iv]
A little boy
just nine years and four days old was gone and I began to wonder just what caused
his death. Was it an accident? Newspaper searches gave no clues so I decided
that it would be necessary to get a death certificate to find the answer to my
questions.
When I
located the death certificate for John, the cause of death was listed as poliomyelitis.
Wow! Polio! Growing up in the 1940s and
1950s I was very well aware of Polio and it’s seriousness but I hadn’t known
that it even existed in the 1880s.
A query at
Wikipedia gave me more information about Polio and the epidemics associated
with it. I never knew that it was associated with water like cholera. There was
no epidemic in Chicago in 1885 but I am sure that the water was not the cleanest
and a young boy would be drawn like a magnet to any standing water. I will never
know how John contracted Polio but now I know the cause of his death.
[i] Ancestry.com.
Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT,
USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
[ii] Archives
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Elk Grove Village, IL, USA;
Parish: Emanuel Lutheran Church; ELCA Film Number: S160-161; SSIRC Film Number:
S-160
[iii] 1880
U S Federal Census; Census Place: Chicago, Cook, Illinois; Roll: 195; Page:
601A; Enumeration District: 133
[iv] Ancestry.com.
Cook County, Illinois, Deaths Index, 1878-1922 [database on-line]. Provo, UT,
USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
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