Olive Risley Seward - Life and Career

Life and Career

Olive F. Risley, was born in Fredonia, New York, daughter of the former Harriet C. Crosby and Anson A. Risley, a prominent civil servant who later worked for the Secretary of the Treasury and resided in Washington, D.C.. She became a close companion of William Henry Seward's in the last years of his life, beginning about 1868, following by a few years the deaths of Seward's wife Frances Adeline Miller Seward and daughter Frances Adeline "Fanny" Seward, and shortly after the death of her own mother (in 1866). In order to curtail gossip and family worries about their relationship, Olive was formally adopted by Seward in 1870. She also, in company with her sister Harriet Risley, traveled extensively with Seward through Asia, the Middle East and Europe in 1870-1871, an experience recorded in the book William H. Seward's Travels Around the World, published in 1873, a best-selling work of its day for which Olive Risley Seward was credited as editor. She and Seward's three surviving sons were named joint heirs of the Seward estate.