A farmer, firefighter, and “daredevil” who raced cars as a young man and rode motorcycles into his late 80s, Lawrance Leroy Osborn was one of Wainscott’s “most enduring and endearing characters,” his family wrote.
Mr. Osborn, who was 91, died at home last Thursday.
He was born at Southampton Hospital on March 13, 1934, to Leroy Hedges Osborn and the former Isabelle Lawrance. “He was given his Scottish mother’s maiden name, which has been misspelled with an ‘e’ throughout his life,” according to his family.
Mr. Osborn grew up in Wainscott, farming the land that his ancestors settled in the 1600s. He attended the one-room Wainscott School, adjacent to the cemetery where generations of his relatives are buried, “including whalers lost at sea and soldiers lost to war.”
After graduating from East Hampton High School, he earned a degree from Farmingdale State College, known then for its agricultural program.
Early on, he and his good friend Buzz Hedges had a bicycle shop. He spent his early farming career “plowing fields, digging potatoes, and raising strawberries. He delivered milk and cream for the Osborn Dairy and blocks of ice to the fishing boats in Three Mile Harbor,” his family wrote. He cultivated and tended the Osborn pick-your-own berry fields on Wainscott’s Main Street for many years. “The phone would ring ‘off the hook’ in early June with folks asking if the berries were ready yet, eager to return to pick year after year.”
He also had a floor sanding and refinishing business in the 1970s. “Honest to a fault, as well as a perfectionist, he could never bring himself to bill for all the hours he spent to finish the job to his standards,” and as such he “became highly sought after for the quality of his work.”
He eventually returned to farming, growing strawberries, potatoes, corn, and then more vegetables to supply the family farm stand on Montauk Highway in Sagaponack and later near the family home in Wainscott.
When he retired from farming, he did equipment repairs in Bridgehampton with his son, Elisha.
Mr. Osborn volunteered with the Bridgehampton Fire Department for 65 years as a member of Mack Engine Company Number 1. Always up for a challenge, he studied to become an emergency medical technician in his mid-70s.
As a young man, he raced modified-class race cars at the Riverhead Raceway and other tracks on Long Island. A motorcycle enthusiast, one December he rode his 1953 Indian 80 all the way from Washington State to Wainscott, “through snowstorms with a failing headlamp to make it home for New Year’s Eve.” That was just one of many stories friends and family told of his “adventures and escapades.” He took his last spin around the block on his motorcycle when he was 88.
Mr. Osborn married Iris Streit in July 1965. He adopted her daughter, Anna, and the couple then welcomed a second daughter, Lori, and a son, Elisha, all of whom attended the Wainscott School.
Mr. and Mrs. Osborn traveled in later years, visiting his mother’s birthplace in Dumbarton, Scotland, and taking a cruise to Alaska, among other trips.
“He had a wry sense of humor, a generous and playful spirit, and served as a mentor to local youth, inspiring one young relative to become a farmer, another to become a shop teacher,” his family wrote.
His wife died in 2022. He is survived by his three children, Anna Osborn of Copperas Cove, Tex., Lori Osborn of Shelter Island Heights, and Elisha Osborn of Wainscott, and by seven grandchildren, Jani Jensen, Carmen Walker, Brianna Shultz, Max Osborn, Jack Kimmelmann, Gabriella Osborn, and Evelyn Osborn, and six great-grandchildren, Magdalena Osborn, Lily Lovelace, Annika Lovelace, Joshua Shultz, May Shultz, and Tori Osborn. Also surviving are two sisters, Caroline Osborn Hedges of Spokane, Wash., and Charlotte Osborn Pratt of Orange City, Fla.
The family will receive visitors on Nov. 29 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. There will be a graveside service at the Wainscott Cemetery on Nov. 30 at 2 p.m., followed by a reception at the Wainscott Chapel.
His family has suggested donations to “your local volunteer fire department.”
