Olive and Rosebud Osborn, Teen Brides

The Osborn girls

From my husband's side of the family tree, I admire the romantic names of the Osborn sisters, as shown in their baptismal record at left, from 1868. The full names of these three sisters appear nowhere else but on their baptismal record! 

Harriet "Hattie" Verona Osborn was the oldest, Olive "Ollie" Violet Osborn was the middle girl, and Rosebud Charlotte Augusta was the youngest of the Osborn sisters. 

Olive gets married

On the 26th of April in 1874 in Toledo, Ohio, teenaged bride Olive Osborn (1856-1891) married William Henry White Wood (1853-1893). They were my hubby's great uncle and great aunt. 

When Olive married William, she was 17, her husband was 20.

Olive and Stephen, then Olive and William

This wasn't Olive's first marriage: In 1872, at only 15, she eloped to Detroit where she married Stephen Sylvester Babcock. Olive said she was 16, the minimum age to marry in Michigan at the time, and her older sister "Hattie" was a witness. No documentation of how that marriage was dissolved. Stephen married again later.  

Olive and William settled in Toledo and had a large family, their youngest born late in February, 1891. Sadly, Olive died in March of 1891 from "peripheral septicemia." William contracted typhoid some months later and died in 1893 from "typhoid relapse."

Rosebud and John

Rosebud married five months after her sister Olive, wed to John C. Werts in Toledo, Ohio in September, 1874. Although 16 was the minimum age to marry in Ohio, Rosebud was only 15. No record of her having a parent's consent to marry. She and John also raised their family in Toledo.

Thinking of Olive Osborn Wood and her husband, William Henry White Wood, on the anniversary of their wedding in 1874.