In addition to keeping the Bosworth Jewelry Store and Gift Shop in Fall River Mills, Calif., open for 20 years after her husband’s death, Josephine Brown Bosworth actively advocated establishing the Fort Crook Historical Society and donated land for the Fall Creek Museum. She also donated land to the First Church of Christ in Fall River.
Brown was born in 1885 as the youngest of seven children. At the time, the family lived on a ranch near Dana, Calif., along the Fall River, and her father was a house painter. When Brown was 21, her mother died in the Occidental Hotel in Santa Rosa when it collapsed from shock waves created by the San Francisco earthquake of April 1906.
In 1913, Brown married Albert H. Bosworth of Fall River Mills, a jeweler and watchmaker, and the couple established their jewelry and gift shop. Bosworth died in 1951.
As curator of the Fall Creek Museum, Brown insisted on approving all exhibits offered for display.
Josephine Brown was the last remaining member of her family when she died in 1971.
Source: Beauchamp, ED, Jean. "R. Josephine Bosworth." The Covered Wagon, 1972, pp. 70-71.
