Isobel Osbourne

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.{{cite web |last=Dury |first=Richard |title=Robert Louis Stevenson's Family |work=RLS Website |url=https://robert-louis-stevenson.org/family/ }} A second son was born to the Strongs, but he died before his first birthday.{{cn|date=March 2020}} Belle and her family lived in Hawaii from 1883 to 1889.{{cite journal|last1=Tranquada|first1=Jim|last2=King|first2=John|title=New History of the Origins and Development of the ʻUkulele, 1838–1915|journal=The Hawaiian Journal of History|location=Honolulu|publisher=Hawaiian Historical Society|volume=37|year=2003|hdl=10524/382|oclc=60626541|pages=1–32|url=https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/382/JL37007.pdf|access-date=2020-03-31|archive-date=2022-10-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221020073235/https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/382/JL37007.pdf|url-status=dead}} She designed the Royal Order of the Star of Oceania in 1886 for King Kalākaua and was one of the few women to be awarded the honor.{{cite journal |last1= |first1= |title=The Lounger |journal=The Critic and Literary World |date=July 1905 |volume=47 |number=1 |page=8 |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_critic_1905-07_47_1/page/8/mode/2up }}{{cite book|last=Gonschor|first=Lorenz|title=A Power in the World: The Hawaiian Kingdom in Oceania|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ddvFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA95|date=30 June 2019|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|isbn=978-0-8248-8001-9|page=95}}

Belle and her family moved to Vailima, Samoa, 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, 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.{{Cite book|last=Harman|first=Claire|url=https://archive.org/details/myselfotherfello0000harm/page/460/mode/2up|title=Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson|year=2006|publisher=Harper Collins|isbn=978-0-06-093525-2|page=460|language=en}} In 1926 Field purchased Zaca Lake and surrounding land in the Figueroa Mountains near Los Olivos, California.{{cite web |url=http://www.zacalakeretreat.com/history.html |title=Zaca Lake history |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100522165251/http://www.zacalakeretreat.com/history.html |archive-date=May 22, 2010 |publisher=Zaca Lake Foundation}}

Isobel built an artists' studio there and the Field home became a popular meeting place for writers and actors.[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0276040/bio 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

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.

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• [http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007109820 This Life I've Loved], scanned ebook at Hathi Trust

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Category:1858 births

Category:1953 deaths

Category:American women writers

Category:Robert Louis Stevenson

Category:Recipients of the Royal Order of the Star of Oceania