Accession 2005-4 - Margot Osborn

Edith Margot Osborn (Neé Camp) was born in Wainfleet, Lincolnshire, England in 1902 and received her education at St. Mary Cray, Kent. Her family moved to Rochester, Kent, where she worked as a civil servant for three years and met her future husband, Arthur George Osborn. Mr. Osborn’s first wife had died three years before, their daughter, Veronica, was 10 years old. Arthur and Margot were married at St. Barnabas church, Gillingham, Ken and Margot sailed for Canada on the “Empress of France”.

After a short stay in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Arthur opened a general store at Eldersley. One night in January the building next to their store caught fire and with no fire brigade or water, they watched their home and store burn to the ground. Arthur and Margot moved then to Regina. Arthur found employment at the new Hotel Saskatchewan and Margot took classes at the University of Saskatchewan. After seven years in Regina, Arthur died of pneumonia and Margot was left with four children between the ages of three and twelve.

By 1947, Margot knew that her work with the army in the Defense Department would soon end and she resigned. Margot went back to England for six months to visit her parents. After returning to North America, Margot visited a sister in New Canaan, Connecticut and then obtained a clerical job with the Christian Science Monitor organization in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1963 she was appointed secretary to the Christian Science Board of Education where she worked until retiring in 1969 to Victoria, British Columbia.

While living in Regina, Margot had begun to publish poetry and her play “Judas Incorporated” was produced by the Little Theatre Society there. While in Boston she continued to write plays and poetry and was working on a science fiction novel titled A Short Visit to Ergon, published by Marlowe House (a small publishing company which she and her son established). An edition of 2000 was sold out.

Between 1946 and 1990 Margot published 10 plays or poetry books.

Margot had a happy and active retirement in Victoria. She was a member and president of the local branch of the Canadian Authors’ Association, she traveled in Canada and abroad and while on a visit to Egypt she undertook research for her pageant-play on the life of Moses, “The Man Who Might Have Been King”. Margot’s poetry has been published in The Christian Science Monitor, Canadian Forum, Canadian Poetry Magazine, Regina Leader Post, National Home Monthly and other periodicals.

Margot Osborn died on January 19, 2006.