Dication Of Tomb In Western Samoa

[?]ct in RLS’s [?]eas Story

•e of land atop of Mount a, near Vailima, behind i. in Western Samoa, now dedicated in perpetuity to rnment of Samoa; and the ent, through the present immissioner (Hon. G. R.

DBE). has given a pledge tomb there will be always mb on Mount Vaea con ; remains of Robert Louis i, who died at Vailima on r 3, 1894, and the ashes of Fanny, who died in Cali -1914. nerican writer, Mrs. Elsie ildwell, who is an admirer ison’s work, was in Samoa and discovered that the the land on Mount Vaea in the name of the late ny Stevenson. She informed ibel Field (Mrs. Fanny i’s daughter), then a f over 90, residing in Cali jspondence ensued between family of RLS, Mrs. Cald- Mr. Powles, with the re stated) that the site of renson tomb has become ifficial Samoa, and its re ty. iedication probably repre the last incident in the aating story of how Robert venson came into the South slands —the love-story of a lous man. ras born in 1851, in Scot e son of a strict Presby inister. Fanny Vandegrift i 11 years earlier, in 1840, mopolis. In 1857, when ged 17, married husky Sam ?, RLS was a gangling boy robably showing already is of the tuberculosis which him during his short life, nd Fanny Osbourne begat 1859) and Lloyd (1868). was restless, hot-blooded, nental —she longed to be . Nineteen years after her !, she was semi-separated • ever-roving Sam, and liv village in France with her lildren, taking drawing- There she met RLS, also a : and, although only 25, a famous writer. They be /ers, and lived together in 8, Fanny and her children to USA and, still more or ported by Sam, lived in y. Isobel, an exceedingly coded lass of 19, met, and

eloped with, and married Joe Strong, an artist.

RLS, defying the edicts of the manse and the pleas of his friends, followed Fanny to California in 1879; Fanny (now 40) got a divorce, and married RLS on May 19, 1880.

Fanny and RLS —usually with Lloyd Osbourne as part of their household —wandered in America and Europe. Stevenson did some of his most famous work in these years.

Isobel and Joe Strong wandered also, in USA and Europe, and settled for a time in Hawaii. They had a son, Austin Strong.

In 1888, the Stevensons took their first South Seas cruise, in their vessel Casco, out of ’Frisco, to French Oceania, and back to Hawaii, where they were joined by the Strongs.

In 1889, RLS, Fanny, Lloyd Osbourne and Joe Strong left Hono lulu in the yacht Equator, cruised in Micronesia and on to Samoa. Isobel and her son, Austin, went to Syd ney, and waited there.

Late in 1889, the Equator party arrived in Samoa; decided to settle there; RLS bought 400 acres; left H. P Moors (who wrote With Steven son In Samoa ), to clear the estate which afterwards became Vailima; and went on to Sydney.

RLS, Fanny and Lloyd took another South Pacific Islands wander in the Janet Nichol —he had been very ill in Sydney—and by 1890 they had established them selves permanently at Vailima.

RLS there supported quite a large houshold —Fanny; her daughter Isobel; Isobel’s artist husband, Joe Strong; Isobel’s son Austin (later sent to school in California) ; Lloyd Osbourne; and for a time, old Mrs.

Stevenson (mother of RLS) from Scotland.

Joe Strong was not a social suc cess in Samoa —he was “too con vivial,” and he had a wandering eye. The women “pushed him out,” and he went to USA, and he and Isobel were divorced. Isobel be came RLS’s secretary.

RLS had only four colourful years at Vailima before he died suddenly from a cerebral haemorrhage (not, as many suppose, from tuber culosis) . He had been much loved by the Samoans, who carried his coffin on their shoulders up the steep slope of adjoining Mount Vaea, to his grave there, at the spot where now is the well-known, inscribed tomb.

Fanny, Isobel and Lloyd remained

in Apia for some years—Lloyd, now a mature man, became USA consul there Then Vailima was sold to a Vladivostock merchant and later, after Germany fully annexed Samoa, it became the Governor’s residence —as it still is.

Fanny and Isobel lived together in California; and Isobel married Salisbury Field, a playwright friend of her mother. Lloyd Osbourne married, did much writing, and had two children before he was divorced.

Isobel’s son. Austin Strong, became a successful architect and play wright, and died in 1952, aged 71.

There was an oil fortune in the Field family, and Mrs. Isobel Field lived luxuriously in California, until she died, aged 95, in July, 1953.

There were unfortunate develop ments following the death of “Teuila” (Mrs. Field retained her Samoan name for 50 years). Lou and Alan Osbourne, sons of Lloyd Osbourne, brought suit to share in their aunt’s estate, and this action was still going on in August.

Austin Strong’s widow (her daughter-in-law) was Mrs. Field’s sole heir. Mrs. Field’s income from oil royalties ceased with her death. t A booklet setting out the advant ages of co-operative movements and notes on their formation, has been published by the office of Registrar of Co-operatives at Rarotonga.