Isobel Osbourne

Isobel "Belle" Osbourne Strong Field (1858–1953) was the daughter of Fanny Stevenson and sister of Lloyd Osbourne. Through her mother's second marriage, she was a stepdaughter of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Isobel Osbourne
Born1858
Indianapolis
Died1953 (aged 94–95)
NationalityAmerican
Known forStepdaughter of Robert Louis Stevenson
Spouse(s)
​
(
m. 1879; div. 1892)

​
(
m. 1914; died 1936)
Children1
Parent(s)Samuel Osbourne
Fanny Van de Grift
RelativesLloyd Osbourne (brother)
Allen Herbert’s House, 1896 watercolor painting by Isobel Osbourne, Honolulu Museum of Art

Biography

Belle was born in Indianapolis to Samuel and Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne and married the artist Joseph Dwight Strong (1853–1899) in 1879, and had a son, Austin Strong (1881–1952) who later became a successful playwright.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3][4]

She designed a royal naval ensign similar to this for the Kaimiloa, the flagship of the Royal Hawaiian Navy.

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.[5] Joe Strong had a drinking problem and Belle divorced him in 1892.[1]

In 1914, she married her mother's secretary (and possibly lover), the younger journalist Edward Salisbury Field, six months after her mother died.[1] Field was only three years older than her son Austin. When oil was discovered on property owned by Field they became wealthy.[6] In 1926 Field purchased Zaca Lake and surrounding land in the Figueroa Mountains near Los Olivos, California.[7]

Isobel built an artists' studio there and the Field home became a popular meeting place for writers and actors.[8] 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).

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References
  1. Belle Strong - Stepdaughter Archived 2012-03-20 at the Wayback Machine at Robert Louis Stevenson website.
  2. Tranquada, Jim; King, John (2003). New History of the Origins and Development of the ʻUkulele, 1838–1915 (PDF). The Hawaiian Journal of History. 37. Honolulu: Hawaiian Historical Society. pp. 1–32. hdl:10524/382. OCLC 60626541.
  3. Gilder, Jeannette Leonard; Gilder, Joseph Benson (1905). The Critic. Good Literature Publishing Company. p. 8.
  4. Gonschor, Lorenz (30 June 2019). A Power in the World: The Hawaiian Kingdom in Oceania. University of Hawaii Press. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-8248-8001-9.
  5. "Robert Louis Stevenson's Family". The RLS Website. September 25, 2015. Retrieved September 25, 2015.
  6. Claire Harman. Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Lewis Stevenson, HarperCollins 2006, pg.460
  7. "Zaca Lake history". Zaca Lake Foundation. Archived from the original on May 22, 2010.
  8. Salisbury Field, bio at IMDB
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