Ernest Fiset and Deveta Collins were married in 1926 at a small prairie church in Plessis, Saskatchewan. Life was hard from the start—Deveta gave birth three times in two and a half years, losing two babies to premature birth. Their story, traced through a faded newspaper clipping, a colourized wedding photo, and a quiet cemetery on the prairie, reflects the challenges of rural life in 1920s Saskatchewan.

My great-grandfather, Ernest Fiset, died when I was sixteen years old, too young to ask him many questions. But over the past few years,...