Isobel "Belle" Osbourne Strong Field (September 18, 1858 – June 26, 1953) was an author and the daughter of
Fanny Stevenson and sister of
Lloyd Osbourne. Through her mother's second marriage, she was a stepdaughter of
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...
.
Biography
Osbourne was born in
Indianapolis to Samuel and
Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne.
She married the artist
Joseph Dwight Strong (1853–1899) in 1879, and had a son, Joseph Austin Strong (1881–1952) who later became a successful playwright.
[Belle Strong - Stepdaughter]
at Robert Louis Stevenson website. A second son was born to the Strongs, but he died before his first birthday. Belle and her family lived in Hawaii from 1883 to 1889. She designed the
Royal Order of the Star of Oceania in 1886 for King Kalakaua and was one of the few women to be awarded the honor.
Belle and her family moved to
Vailima, Samoa
Vailima is the name of a village about four miles south of Apia, the capital of Samoa. The population is 769. Vailima is part of the electoral political district Tuamasaga.
Origins
The name Vailima means "water in the hand", according to an old ...
, in May 1891 with her mother and step-father. There she was Robert Louis Stevenson's literary assistant transcribing his words when he was too ill to write. Her husband Joseph Strong had a drinking problem and Belle divorced him in 1892.
[
In 1914, she married her mother's secretary (and possibly lover; Robert Louis Stevenson had died in 1894), the younger journalist ]Edward Salisbury Field
Edward "Ned" Salisbury Field Jr. (February 28, 1878 – September 20, 1936) was an American author, playwright, artist, poet, and journalist.
Biography
He was born on February 28, 1878 in Indianapolis, Indiana to Edward Salisbury and Sarah Mill ...
, six months after her mother died.[ Field was only three years older than her son Austin. When oil was discovered on property owned by Field they became wealthy.][Claire Harman]
''Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Lewis Stevenson''
HarperCollins 2006
pg.460
/ref> In 1926 Field purchased Zaca Lake and surrounding land in the Figueroa Mountains near Los Olivos, California
Los Olivos (; Spanish language, Spanish for "the olive trees") is an unincorporated area, unincorporated community in the Santa Ynez Valley of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tourism is popular in this rural area which is an ag ...
.[Salisbury Field]
bio at IMDB Isobel and her brother Lloyd wrote about Robert Louis Stevenson and their experiences in Samoa in ''Memories of Vailima'' (1902). Later Isobel wrote her memoirs in two books ''This Life I've Loved'' (1937) and ''A Bit of My Life'' (1951).
File:'Allen Herbert's House', 1896 watercolor by Isobel Osbourne, Honolulu Academy of Arts.JPG, ''Allen Herbert’s House'', 1896 watercolor painting by Isobel Osbourne, Honolulu Museum of Art
The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single co ...
File:Hawaiian Naval Ensign (PP-23-4-004).jpg, Isobel Osbourne designed a royal naval ensign similar to this for the Kaimiloa, the flagship of the Royal Hawaiian Navy.
References
External links
*
''This Life I've Loved''
scanned ebook at Hathi Trust
HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Osbourne, Isobel
1858 births
1953 deaths
American women writers
Robert Louis Stevenson
Recipients of the Royal Order of the Star of Oceania