Henry STUSSE ^{2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18}

  Noted events in his life were:

• Census: 1870: West Orange, Essex County, New Jersey. ²⁰

• Census: 1880: Irvington, Essex County, New Jersey. ²¹

• Census: 1900: Newark, Essex County, New Jersey. ²²

• Census: 1910: Cedar Grove, Essex County, New Jersey. ²³

• Census: 1920: Cedar Grove, Essex County, New Jersey. ²⁴

• Occupation: 1900 Saloon Keeper; 1910 Laborer.

• Obituary/Death Notice: Newark Evening News, 11 Feb 1924. ²⁵ STUSSE - on February 10, 1924, Henry Stusse, in his 54th year. Funeral services will be held at W. Clifton Terrill's funeral parlors, 1955 Springfield avenue, Irvington, on Tuesday, February 12, at 2:30 P.M. Relatives and friends are invited to attend. Interment at Clinton Cemetery, Irvington.

• Research Notes: Stucy, Kathleen Heath; research and personal knowledge. ²⁶ FROM STUSSE TO STUCY: Sometime between 1910 and 1912, Henry's wife, Mary Monaghan Stusse, and their 3 sons, Joseph, Walter, and Owen changed the spelling of their last name to STUCY. (The sons, and a daughter who died as an infant, were all born as STUSSE.) I have never ascertained the reason why. I can assume that it was because my great-grandfather, Henry, got into some legal trouble sometime between October 1905 and December 1909. Henry Stusse was admitted to the Essex County Hospital for the Insane in Cedar Grove, NJ and is listed there on the 1910 and 1920 census sheets. He was listed as an inmate and remained there until his death in February 1924.

The main cause of Henry's death was Cirrhosis, however, there's a secondary cause listed, Epileptic Insanity. I found an article written by a doctor in 1899 explaining what epileptic insanity is and I wonder if perhaps Henry Stusse may have done a similar thing:
"EPILEPTIC INSANITY: AN UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCE."
"SIR,-In my surgery, the other morning, I found a man behaving himself so drunken-like that I was ordering him out, when he suddenly turned, threw his arms round me, and bore me beneath him backwards on to the form, where he held me so firmly that I had to call for assistance. Even then I could only loosen myself from his clutches by dealing him a severe blow with the clenched fist under his left ear, when he relaxed his grip and dragged me across the floor, where I managed to escape from him. He then staggered backwards on to the form, where he sat in a semistupor as if he had just woke out of a dream, and asked what was the matter, and what we had been doing to him, betraying no consciousness of the scuffle in which he had been such an active participant. I afterwards visited him at home, and from his wife I learned that he was a chronic epileptic, and had given her endless trouble. He again denied all knowledge of the occurrence, apologised profusely for his unconscious offence, and I am perfectly satisfied of his bonafides. Apart from my exceptional share in the episode, the case is interesting from a medico-legal point of view. It was evidently a case of unconscious cerebration, following upon a slight epileptoid seizure, and resulting in a transient attack of epileptic insanity, during which he was, of course, irresponsible for his actions. And yet, during those brief moments of moral irresponsibility, he had committed a criminal offence for the consequences of which, no matter what they might have been, he could have been held liable in the eyes of the law.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2412249/"

Henry married Mary Ann MONAGHAN, daughter of Owen MONAGHAN and Mary MONAGHAN (MAIDEN UNKNOWN), on 28 Apr 1892 in St. Leo's Church, 103 Myrtle Avenue, Irvington, Essex County, New Jersey.¹ (Mary Ann MONAGHAN was born on 29 Sep 1876 in New Jersey, died on 19 Oct 1912 in Irvington, Essex County, New Jersey ²⁷ and was buried on 23 Oct 1912 in Holy Sepulcher Cemetery, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey ²⁸.)