Isobel Osbourne

Isobel "Belle" Osbourne Strong Field (1858-1953) was Robert Louis Stevenson's step-daughter and sister of Lloyd Osbourne.

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, giving birth soon after to a son, Austin Strong (1881-1952) who later became a successful playwright. Joe Strong had a drinking problem and Belle divorced him in 1892.Belle 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.

In 1914, she married her mother’s secretary (and possibly lover), 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. In 1926 Field purchased Zaca Lake and surrounding land in the Figueroa Mountains near Los Olivos, California.

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