St. Olaf College | St. Olaf Alumni

*Osmund Overby ’53

Osmund-Overby---1953-Deceased*Osmund R. Overby, 82, of Columbia, Mo., died peacefully and in the presence of his family on June 1, 2014, after a lengthy struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Osmund “Ozzie” Rudolf Overby, the son of Oscar Overby ’21 and Gertrude Boe Overby ’23, was born Nov. 8, 1931, in Minneapolis. He attended school in Northfield, Minn., and graduated from St. Olaf College in 1953, with a degree in mathematics and philosophy. He played in orchestras and bands as a clarinetist and saxophone player, and was active in several sports and outdoor activities, including ski jumping.

He married Barbara Spande ’55, of Portland, Ore., in 1954, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He served in the United States Army during the Korean War, as a military band musician. The couple attended graduate school at the University of Washington, Seattle, where Ozzie obtained a master’s degree in architecture. In 1963, he received his Ph.D. in art history from Yale University. His first teaching position was at the University of Toronto. From there, he came to the University of Missouri, Columbia, where he taught in the Department of Art History and Archaeology until his retirement in 1998.

At MU, he was a key contributor to long-range campus planning, a driver of the renovation of Pickard Hall, and director of the Museum of Art and Archaeology. He led architectural students from around the nation during several summer projects for the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Historic American Buildings Survey in St. Thomas, Boston, Newport, Hanover, and St. Genevieve. In 1987, Ozzie was named distinguished alumnus of St. Olaf College. During sabbatical years, he conducted research and taught at the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Washington University, St. Louis; and the Philipps University in Marburg, Germany, which was one leg of an extraordinary, year-long road trip through 14 European countries the family made in a 1971 Volkswagen camper van.

Ozzie founded and led several historic preservation organizations at community and state levels in Missouri. He also was a nationally recognized champion of architectural preservation. In Ozzie’s honor, the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation, an organization that advocates for preservation of architectural and historic landmarks in Missouri, annually bestows the Overby Award, given for a published work contributing to the documentation and interpretation of Missouri’s architectural history. Ozzie was a longtime editor of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians and wrote a number of articles and books, including William Adair Bernoudy Architect: Bringing the Legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright to St. Louis. He served for several years as editor-in-chief of the Buildings of the United States series, a 60-volume collection that documents American architecture. His own co-authored volume in this series on the buildings of Missouri will be published posthumously. Over the course of his career, Ozzie advised and mentored numerous doctoral students who have gone on to teach around the world. He was a popular lecturer, and he and Barbara hosted many memorable backyard picnics welcoming students to the department.

A supporter and patron of musical performance in Columbia, Ozzie loved attending student, faculty, and professional concerts. Early in his time in Columbia, he co-founded a film society at the university. He also served on the board of the Missouri Parks Association and advised former Governor Kit Bond on the restoration of the Governor’s Mansion in Jefferson City. He lent his time to civic, academic, and religious organizations, including St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Columbia, where he sang in the choir for many years. While working and in retirement, he joined his wife Barbara on archaeological excavations in Portugal, and together they walked the Camino de Santiago in France and Spain, and a similar pilgrimage route, St. Olaf’s Way, in Norway, from Oslo to Trondheim. Admired for his kindness, intellect, humor, generosity, and humility, Ozzie greatly inspired these same qualities in his friends, colleagues and family.

Ozzie is survived by his wife of 60 years, Barbara; his children, Paul, Katherine Howland, and Charlotte; and four grandchildren, Clara, Alexander, Joseph, and Sarah. He also is survived by a sister, Solveig Overby Tschann ’49, and a brother, Karl Overby ’60. He was preceded in death by a brother, Rolf Overby ’58, in 1959. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Columbia Civic Orchestra.