Five Pages of Written Testimony

A thick envelope arrived yesterday from the Cook County (Illinois) Medical Examiner's Office. I carried it from the mailbox to my desk with trembling hands. Gone were thoughts of doing the Genealogy Happy Dance. This is my family. Otto V. Mueller is my great grand-uncle. The documents inside this envelope from Chicago contained five pages of testimony telling how and why he took his own life.

Otto's half-sister Alma and two of Otto's neighbors testified that Otto had behaved differently during the week after his divorce. He was drinking heavily and talking about leaving the city he loved. On the night he died, Otto went home, turned a gas jet on high and blew out the flame. He climbed into bed and lay there waiting for the "illuminating gas" to fill his lungs and end his grief. 

How could he know that 99-1/2 years later a woman he had never met would sit at her desk blinking back tears and grieving for him?