Last Link With Rls

Death of Mrs. Isobel Field

rE death occurred, in Los Angeles, in July, of Mrs. Isobel Salisbury Field, who was the step-daughter of Robert Louis Stevenson, and who was with him in Western Samoa until his death there on December 3, 1894. She had lived to the great age of 95.

Although 60 years had passed since she accompanied her mother and Stevenson in their South Seas wanderings, including five years in Samoa, Mrs. Field never lost her interest in the Pacific Islands. For years (ever Since the publication of her charming book, This Life I’ve Loved) and in spite of the fact that she was bedridden, Mrs. Field had maintained a correspondence on Islands affairs with the editor of the PIM. She was a distinguished woman of letters in her own right, apart from her association with the great Scottish writer. Her son, Austin Strong, a notable architect and playwright, died last year, aged 71.

“Her death was a shock to those who, over the years, had seen her fight her way up from these heart attacks,” writes Mrs. Elsie Noble Caldwell, also well known as a Pacific Islands traveller and author.

“Her strength was not equal to the last one, and she quietly fell asleep.”

Her friends brought from San Francisco, and laid across her coffin, the same ’ie fog a (fine mat) that had covered the body of RLS when he died at Vailima, Samoa, 59 years ago.

So passes the last living link be tween Stevenson and the Samoa he loved so much.