Personal Data

Jonathan Foster Ober was born on September 6, 1843, in Beverly Farms, the son of Samuel Ober and his wife, Hepzibah Foster

He married on October 11, 1876, in Chicopee, to Lucy E. (Hadley) Doten (b. 1850-1851 in South Hadley; 20Dec1889 in Newton), daughter of Moses Hadley and his wife, Adeline M. Wells.  Lucy (Hadley) Doten was widow of Edward M. Doten.

J. Foster Ober died on August 12, 1896, in Newton

Career

J. Foster Ober was an architect in Boston from about 1865.  In about 1877, he joined with George D. Rand in the firm of Ober and Rand.  They remained partners until about 1881, after which Ober continued as a sole practitioner and Rand joined in partnership with Bertrand Eugene Taylor, who had been an architect in the Ober and Rand office.

Ober designed residential, public, and ecclesiastical buildings.  Among his works were Beverly High School at 4 Exeter Street (1875), the Parish of the Messiah Episcopal Church in Auburndale (designed in 1881 but apparently by Ober alone rather than Ober and Rand; destroyed by fire in 1943), and the Armory on West Newton in Boston (1887).

Ober and Rand designed the expansion of the Hotel Vendôme in 1881-1882.

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