Parents of James Oliver Curwood: James & Abigail Curwood
It was in the living quarters in the back room of cobbler shop in Owosso, Michigan that James and Abigail Curwood gave birth to a boy on June 12th, 1878, whom they named James Oliver Curwood. The cobbler shop sat on the corner of Main and Lansing Street in what is now called West Town. The Curwood family lived here until they moved to Erie County in Ohio to try their hand at farming. They eventually moved back to Owosso when James Oliver Curwood was a teenager and lived on John Street (what is now called Curwood Castle Drive).
James and Abigail Curwood at their home on John Street (known today as Curwood Castle Drive)
James Oliver Curwood at Age 7
“Our old-fashioned house on John Street still stands within a few steps of my present workshop [Curwood Castle] and my room it remains unchanged. The same faded paper is on the walls, the same old magazine pictures are tacked about, and the same scant furniture and home-made shelves are there. Ghosts live within its walls to guard the priceless memories. In this room I wrote and dreamed as a boy. On the old sewing machine stand with its yellow oilcloth cover I wrote half of the thirty novels which I have published. In this room of hallowed memories I fought my way through gloom to happiness and success. In it I rose from poverty and obscurity.”