Fanny Vandegrift
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Fanny Vandergrift Osbourne Stevenson (10 March 1840 —1914) was the wife of Robert Louis Stevenson and mother of Lloyd Osbourne.
Fanny Vandergrift was born in Indianapolis, the daughter of builder Jacob Vandegrift, and his wife Esther Thomas Keen. She was something of a tomboy, and had dark curly hair.
At the age of seventeen she married Samuel Osbourne, a lieutenant on the State Governor's staff. Their daughter Isobel (or 'Belle') was born the following year.
Samuel fought in the American Civil War, went with a friend sick with tuberculosis to California, and via San Francisco, he ended up in the silver mines of Nevada. Once settled there he sent for his family. Fanny and the five-year-old Isobel made the long journey via New York, the isthmus of Panama, San Francisco, and finally by wagons and stage-coach to the mining camps of the Reese River, and the town of Austin in Lander County. Life was difficult in the mining town, and there were few women around. Fanny learned to shoot a pistol and to roll her own cigarettes.
The family moved to Virginia City, Nevada. Samuel began going with saloon girls, and in 1866 he headed off gold prospecting in the Coeur d'Alene Mountains, and Fanny and her daughter journeyed to San Francisco. There was a rumour that Sam had been killed by a grizzly bear, but he returned to the family safe, and a second child Samuel Lloyd was born in 1868. But Samuel continued philandering and Fanny returned to Indianapolis.
The couple were reconciled again in 1869, and lived in Oakland where a second son, Hervey, was born. Fanny took up painting and gardening. However, Sam's behaviour did not improve, and Fanny finally left him in 1875 and moved with her three children to Europe. they lived in Antwerp for three months, and then in order to allow Fanny to study art, they moved to Paris where Fanny and Isobel both enrolled in the Académie Julian. Little Hervey was sick with scrofulous tuberculosis and died on 5 April 1876, and buried in a temporary grave at Père Lachaise.
While in Paris, she met and befriended Robert Louis Stevenson. Convinced of his talent, she encouraged and inspired him. He became deeply attached to her. But Fanny returned abruptly to California.
Stevenson announced his intention of following her, but his parents refused to pay for it, so he saved for three years in order to pay his own way.
In May 1880, in San Francisco, they married and a few days later left for the Napa Valley, and the trip that was to produce his work Silverado Squatters.
In Aug 1880, the family moved to Great Britain, where Fanny helped to patch things up between Robert and his father.
[edit] References
- Rankin, Nicholas, Dead Man's Chest: Travels after Robert Louis Stevenson ISBN 0-571-13808-X
- Tales of Love and Hate in Old San Francisco, Mille Robbins. Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1971. ISBN 1125489812
