Her parents were Dr. Bartholomew and Lydia Morris Fussell, both of old Quaker families, and both in advance of their time in intelligence and ideas.
She started south in April 1862, and under the auspices of the Indiana Sanitary Committee, she went to their station in Memphis, Tennessee.
[3] At the close of the war, she returned to Philadelphia, but learning soon that an effort was being made to induce the State of Indiana to provide a home for the soldiers' orphans, she again offered her services in any useful capacity in that work.
[2] George Merritt, of Indianapolis, Indiana, who had been most urgent in calling the attention of the officers of the State to their duty in that matter, finding that there was no hope, offered to furnish Fussell with the money necessary to clothe, rear, educate and care for a family of ten orphans of soldiers, and bring them up to maturity, if she would furnish the motherly love, the years of hard labor and self-sacrifice, the sleepless nights and endless patience needed for the work.
After a few days of prayerful consideration she accepted, and in the fall of 1865 ten orphans were gathered together in Indianapolis from various parts of the State from among those who had no friends able or willing to care for them.
[2][3] With her usual energy and directness, she went to work to gather statistics on the subject of "Feeble-minded Children " in this and other States, and to interest others in their welfare.
She at last found an active co-worker in Charles Hubbard, the representative from Henry county in the legislature, and their united efforts, aided by other friends of the cause, secured in 1876 the enactment of the law establishing the Home for Feeble-minded Children, put into operation near Knightstown, Indiana.
To gain that end, she promised to secure the needed statistics, if the representative in the Indiana State legislature would present the bill.
She fulfilled her promise, and under the care of Charles Hubbard, the bill was secured, and the Knightstown Home for the Feeble-Minded became the monument of her work.
Under that law, Fussell had all the destitute children of Henry county under her care, creating a model orphans' home.