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Osborne-Montague family papers

 Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: 0190

Scope and Content

The Osborne-Montague family papers contains the papers of four generations of the Osborne and Montague families. The collection contains personal correspondence, financial and business records, photographs, ephemera, publications, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, and artifacts. Please see the scope and content notes for each individual series for more information on what is contained therein.

Dates

  • Creation: 1847 - 1992
  • Creation: Majority of material found within 1890 - 1945

Conditions Governing Access

COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. Advance notice required for access.

Conditions Governing Use

The collection contains published materials; researchers are reminded of the copyright restrictions imposed by publishers on reusing their articles and parts of books. It is the responsibility of researchers to acquire permission from publishers when reusing such materials. The copyright to unpublished materials belongs to the heirs of the writers. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.

Biographical Note

Henry Zenas Osborne was born in New Lebanon, New York on October, 4, 1848 and married Helen Annas of Cazenovia, New York, in 1872. In 1878, they moved to Bodie, California, where Henry was the editor and publisher of the Bodie Free Press. In 1884, the family moved to Los Angeles, where he spent 13 years as the editor and publisher of the Los Angeles Evening Express. From 1898 to 1906, he was a US Marshal for the Southern District of California, and he served as a Representative of California's 10th Congressional District from 1917 until his death in 1923. While in Congress, Henry served on the Committees for Rivers and Harbors and for Appropriations. He was the last Union veteran of the Civil War to serve in Congress. He and his wife, Helen, had four sons, Sherrill Blaisdell (1873-1949), Henry "Harry" Zenas, Jr. (1875-1948), Clarence Bristol (1881-1950), and Raymond Gaylord (1885-1955), and one daughter, Edith Helene (1883-1960). All of his children attended Stanford University.



Helen Annas Osborne was born in Cazenovia, New York in 1849.



Sherrill was an attorney. He married Anna Lois Narver in 1905 and settled in Laguna Beach. They had one son and three daughters.



Clarence was a geologist and mining engineer. He married Lolita Lovejoy (1888-1985), in 1914. They had one son named Henry Z. Osborne III.



Raymond was a testing engineer with chemical and physical laboratories in the Marsh-Strong Building in Los Angeles. He married Frances Strowbridge (1896-1973) in 1920.



Edith Osborne married Samuel S. Stahl, a highway engineer from Sacramento, in 1914. He was a friend of Clarence. They had two children, Osborne and Nancy.



Henry "Harry" Zenas, Jr., received his A.B. in Civil Engineering from Stanford in 1897. While at Stanford, Harry wrote for the Los Angeles Evening Express and the Daily Palo Alto. He also attended law school at the University of Southern California for two and a half years, but did not graduate. From 1902-1919, he worked for the Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering in a variety of capacities, including serving as the Chief Deputy Engineer for a period of eight months in 1903. Most of the projects he worked on involved street improvements and paving. From 1919-1923, he served as the Chief Engineer for the Board of Public Utilities. In 1922 he served as the Executive Chairman of the Los Angeles Traffic Commission. After his father's death in 1923, Harry ran for his seat in Congress, but lost. After losing the election, he formed an engineering consulting firm with Walter E. Jessup. The firm of Osborne & Jessup was involved with a number of development projects, including the Greater Jefferson-Exposition Boulevard Improvement Association, the Beverly Drive Improvement Association and the Venice Boulevard Improvement Association. The partnership was dissolved in 1933. From 1933 to 1940 Harry was a structural draftsman for the Los Angeles Bureau of Power & Light. From 1941 until his death in 1948, Harry held a variety of positions with the Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering.



Harry married Lilian Montague Osborne in 1907 and they had two children--Hortense Montague Osborne Tingstad (1909-1992) and William Montague Osborne (1925-1986).



Lilian Montague Osborne was born in 1885 in Los Angeles, California to Henry Kemp and Hortense Caleff Montague. She attended 30th Street Elementary School, Los Angeles High School and Stanford University. Lilian was an active member of the Women's University Club, the Women's Athletic Club, the California Congress of Parents and Teachers, and the Wilshire Council of the PTA. She and her husband, Henry Zenas Osborne, Jr., had two children--Hortense Marie, born 1909, and William Montague, born 1925. Lilian passed away in 1959.



William Montague Osborne was born in Los Angeles in 1925. He attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo from 1943-1946, where he studied engineering. He did not serve in World War II because he had a bad back and was classified 4-F. He married Bette McConnell in 1946 and they had three children.



Hortense Marie Osborne Tingstad was born on July 19, 1909 in Los Angeles. She attended the Girl's Collegiate School and then graduated with a BA in political science from the University of Southern California in 1931. She worked for various welfare departments of the state of California until her retirement in 1967. She married Edward Maurice Tingstad, of Detroit, Michigan, in 1946. In 1977 Edward was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Hortense's experience with the disease led her to establish the Alzheimer's Disease Research Fund at the Andrus Gerontology Center in May of 1982. Her husband passed away later that year. In 1990, she received an Alumni Service Award from USC's General Alumni Association. Hortense passed away in Los Angeles in 1992.



Hortense Caleff Montague was born in 1855 in Minnesota. Her family moved to Riverside sometime after 1867. She moved to Los Angeles after marrying William Henry Montague (1849-1890) on May 18, 1880. She and her husband had three daughters--Stella Montague Schneider (b. 1881), Lilian Montague Osborne, and Helene Montague Collin (b. 1890). After her husband passed away in 1890, Hortense managed his estate, which included real estate in Pomona, Los Angeles and Alameda, until her death in 1910.



Peter Mowatt Caleff was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts (Maine) in 1818. In 1853, he married Elizabeth Truax, who was born in 1833 in Montreal, Canada. They settled in San Bernardino sometime after 1867. They had two daughters, Hortense Caleff Montague and Emma V. Caleff (b. 1861), and a son, George Caleff (b. 1867). Emma Caleff never married. She was a school teacher. Peter Caleff passed away in 1892.

Rodney Montague was born on August 6, 1800 in Wilmington, Vermont. He moved west to Illinois in 1822, and settled in Ohio in 1835. In 1843 he married Eunice P. Denison, of Brooklyn, Ohio. They had two sons, Newell Smith Montague (b. 1847) and William Henry Kemp Montague (1847-1890) before she passed away in 1848. In 1850, Rodney continued his westward travels, settling in Gainesville, Texas. He returned to Ohio in 1853 to marry his wife's sister, Louisa Denison. After reaching California in 1856, the Montagues settled in Los Angeles, where Rodney purchased 35 acres of land at Adams and Main Street. He raised nursery stock and grew fruit. Louisa died in 1871; Rodney passed away on March 6, 1886. They were both Spiritualists who believed they could contact the spirits of people who had passed away.

Extent

41.9 Linear Feet (64 boxes, 1 map case drawer)

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

The Osborne-Montague family papers contains the papers of multiple generations of the Osborne and Montague families, as well as of the families they married into (primarily the Tingstads and the Caleffs). Rodney Montague moved to Los Angeles in 1853, while Henry Zenas Osborne moved to the area in 1878. Montague was a farmer; Osborne owned the Los Angeles Evening Express and was a Congressman for California's 10th Congressional District from 1917 until his death in 1923. His son, Henry Zenas Osborne, Jr., married Montague's grandaughter, Lilian Montague in 1906. The collection contains correspondence, business papers, financial records, artifacts, photographs, newspapers, and ephemera from the various families represented.

Acquisition

The Osborne-Montague family papers were donated by the estate of Hortense Marie Osborne Tingstad upon her death in 1992.

Related Archival Materials

The papers of Henry Zenas Osborne (1848-1923) and his children can also be found in the following collections: the Henry Zenas Osborne Papers (Collection 772) at UCLA's Charles E. Young Research Library; in the Papers of Henry Z. Osborne, 1878-1924 (mssHM 61755-62462, HM 62477) at the Henry E. Huntington Library; in the Osborne Family Papers (SC 636) at Stanford University's Department of Special Collections and University Archives; and in the Henry Zenas Osborne Papers, 1870-1922 (BANC MSS 73/191c) at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library.

Separated Materials

A list of the books separated from the collection is available on-site.

Title
Finding Aid of the Osborne-Montague family papers
Status
Completed
Author
Rebecca Hirsch
Date
September 2010
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Sponsor
The processing of this collection and the creation of this finding aid was funded by the generous support of the National Historic Publications and Records Commission.

Repository Details

Part of the USC Libraries Special Collections Repository

Contact:
Doheny Memorial Library 206
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles California 90089-0189 United States