Story: Death rates and life expectancy

Mr and Mrs Roots and their large family pose for the camera in front of their Whanganui home in the 1870s. The house started as a two-bedroom cottage but was enlarged several times to accommodate more children. In this decade especially there was both high fertility and high mortality in Pākehā society. This took its toll on women of childbearing age, who had to deal with the physical stress of bearing many children. Consequently men had a longer life expectancy. Mrs Roots predeceased her husband by a number of years.