Owen D. Young

Owen D. Young was born on October 27, 1874 in a small farmhouse in Van Hornesville, Stark, Herkimer County, New York. His parents’ names were Jacob Smith and Ida Young and they worked the farm that his grandfather owned. Owen was an only child, his parents having lost their first born son before he was born, and his birth was something rejoiced. He was the first male of the family to have a name that was not biblical since they had first arrived in 1750, driven from the Palatinate on the Rhine in Germany by constant war and religious persecution. They were taken in by the Protestant Queen Anne in England, sent to New York in 1710 to act to provide naval stores for the British fleet along the Hudson River, and eventually moving north and west, taking land from the Native Americans before settling along the Mohawk. The ‘D’ in his name was more for adornment than anything else, and so does not stand for anything.

Owen went to school for the first time in the spring of 1881. He was six years old, and had always been inclined to books and studying. He had a teacher, Menzo McEwan, who taught him for years, and would eventually be responsible for Owen going to East Springfield, one of the few secondary schools that he could afford. Of course, it was not too close to Van Hornesville, which had few secondary education opportunities near it. This took him away from the farm, where his help was needed, but his parents supported his pursuit of education to the point of later mortgaging the farm to send him to St. Lawrence University at Canton, N.Y.

He was married to Josephine Sheldon Edmonds (1870 - 1937), with whom he had five children. Following Josephine's death, he married Louise Powis Clark (1887–1965), a widow with three children.

Children

 * Charles Jacob Young (December 17, 1899–October 2, 1987), Scientist and inventor at RCA
 * John Young (August 13, 1902–August 21, 1926), (killed in a train accident)
 * Josephine Young (February 16, 1907–January 8, 1990), who became an author of Speculative fiction, writing as Josephine Young Case
 * Philip Young (May 9, 1910–January 15, 1987), who became Dean of the Columbia Business School (1948-1953), Chairman of the Civil Service Commission (1953–1957), and United States Ambassador to the Netherlands (1957-1960)
 * Richard Young (June 23, 1919–November 18, 2011), Attorney, expert on international and maritime law, and law professor