I never thought I’d have anything to contribute to Madness Monday at GeneaBloggers. Sure I have plenty of dementia in the family but I doubted I’d ever have any good stories about this subject. A while back (meaning I can’t remember when), I got the death certificate for my Great-Great Grandfather. I got quite a surprise when looking at his cause of death.
That’s right folks. It reads “Acute Insanity” as his cause of death. The Contributory causes seem to say: “Worry over sickness of the other 3 ??? family.” This certificate was the Ancestry.com copy, I’m going to order a certified copy and see if the writing is clearer. I have reason to believe it will be. 😉
Now looking into his family situation I can’t really blame him. By the time of his death, four of his eleven children had died as infants. 1913 is still a little early for the “Super Flu of 1918,” unless there was a very localized epidemic I’m not aware of. I will probably spend a day going through the newspaper archives on my first Kentucky genealogy trip. 🙂
I’m sure it wasn’t worry that was his downfall but maybe stress induced heart attack? Stroke? Brain Hemorrhage? Who knows, but I’ll always be able to say he died of Acute Insanity.
Madness Monday is Daily Blogging Topic I got from GeneaBloggers. To participate in Madness Monday simply create a post with the main focus being an ancestor who may have suffered from some form of mental illness or an ancestor who drives you “mad” because you have trouble locating them or locating more information about them.
