One quarter of me is pure Harry Osborn, who was half Dutch.* His grandparents on his mother's side were Jannis Abraham Kusse and Cornelia Eckebus Kusse, who came from Nieuwvliet, arriving with brothers and sisters in Rochester between 1865 and 1870. They lived on Kusse Street, which is no longer on the map.
Jannis became John in America and turned his trade, carpentry, into a business found in Rochester City Directories as first Kooman and Kusse, then Kusse and Company, then Kusse and Lewis. John died in 1889.
His daughter Frances M. Kusse, born in Rochester in 1871, married Charles E. Osborne on December 27, 1892. Their premature infant son died in August, 1893 and was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery. Francis gave birth to Harry in 1895, his sister Florence in 1897, and died, tuberculosis, in 1900.
Charles and his two young children lived with his Kusse in-laws on and off. They didn't like him very much and Charles may not have been welcome in the Kusse home, since in city directories from 1895 on, he resides at different home addresses. John Kusse, Frances's brother, had a particular hatred for Charles Osborne because Charles "mistreated" Frances. It makes me wonder what sort of treatment Charles observed in his own domestic situation as he grew up. Did Henry mistreat Catharine? Besides impregnating her four times without ever marrying her?
Cornelia Kusse may have despised her son-in-law, but she raised her daughter's children until she wore out and died in February of 1909, age 62. I'm sure Harry was the cause of death. He was a hellion. The time he put a live rabbit in the oven was apparently the final straw. At that point, brother John insisted that Charles Osborne raise his own kids. To quote his son Bob, who shared the story, John said to Charles, "Take them! They're yours!" In the census of 1910, the children are living with their father.
It cannot be assumed that all sweet old Dutch grandmothers retain their composure at all times. Harry got yelled at constantly and undoubtedly deserved it. Fathers tend to pass such things along, which is how my father learned to swear in Dutch, and I did too. From his grandmother, my father's father picked up certain phrases, such as that for "Goddamn fool idiot/slob/jerk!" My father passed this down to me. "Godverdomme smeerlap." I heard it a lot, but I just now looked up how to spell it.
* Making me fully one-eighth Dutch.