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Robert Storrs Osgood (1873-1961) was a pastor and a teacher. Born in 1873 in Des Moines, Iowa to Caroline Storrs and George Root Osgood, he was the youngest of three boys, and attended West Des Moines High School. In 1889 the Osgood family moved to Tacoma, Washington, where Osgood's father George founded the Wheeler-Osgood Co., a wood manufacturing company.

Osgood moved back to Iowa in 1890 to attend Iowa College (now known as Grinnell College), where he met Anna Preston Adams (1873-1941) from Mason City, Iowa. Both graduated from Iowa College in 1894, and they married in 1899, after Osgood obtained his bachelor of Divinity from Chicago Theological Seminary in 1898. Osgood then became a pastor in Nebraska (Harvard Congregational Church), Indiana (Mayflower Congregational Church), and Iowa (Belle Plaine Congregational Church) before moving to Seattle, Washington in 1908, where he was the founding pastor of Prospect Congregational Church. Anna and Robert had no children, but in 1910, the couple took in Adeline Lefebvre, a teenager from Minnesota, as a ward.

In 1915 Osgood moved to Bainbridge Island to become the pastor of Winslow Congregational Church (now Eagle Harbor Congregational Church), as well as a French teacher at The Moran School, a boys school. He took summer courses in French and education at the University of Washington during this time. Osgood was strongly against the United States's position of neutrality, and in 1917, the year the United States entered World War One, Osgood became involved with the Y.M.C.A. (Young Men's Christian Association), serving as a Y.M.C.A. secretary at Fort Harrison in Helena, Montana and later at the base hospital at Camp Lewis, Tacoma, Washington. In December of 1917, Osgood left for France with the Y.M.C.A. to work as the American director of a Foyer du Soldat, a French Protestant organization that provided canteens for French and American soldiers to relax and write letters home.

Osgood was the American director of a Foyer du Soldat in Saint-Ouen, France, and then at a French aviation training school in Cazaux (Gironde), France. In Saint-Ouen, Osgood met Louis Girard and Gaston Degy (a professional cyclist), French soldiers whose letters to Osgood are included in the Osgood Papers. In Cazaux, Osgood struck up a strong friendship with Georges-Elisée Grandperrin, his French co-director. Osgood was even invited to visit the Grandperrin family in Orthez, France. Osgood was in correspondence with Jeanne Grandperrin, George-Elisée's sister, as well as Mathilde Mounet (George-Elisée's girlfriend). From August 1918 until the end of 1918, Osgood worked as the director of a Foyer du Soldat in Salonika (now known as Thessaloniki), Greece.

After returning from Europe at the end of 1918, Osgood returned to Bainbridge Island, Washington where he resumed his post as pastor of Winslow Congregational Church (his wife Anna had taken over the position during his time abroad) and as a French instructor at the Moran School. In 1925 Osgood accepted a position as a Professor of Modern Languages at Whitman College, teaching courses in French and Spanish literature. From 1922-1927, Osgood took summer courses in French and Spanish at the University of Washington, where he finally obtained his master's in Spanish in March of 1928. Osgood taught at Whitman until 1932, returning to Bainbridge Island once more to teach at the Moran School. In 1943, Osgood travelled to Mexico, where he taught English at a private school in Mazatlan, Mexico. He retired in 1949 at the age of 76, and moved to Chula Vista, California in 1950, where he occasionally preached at Community Church. He died on November 23, 1961 in Chula Vista.