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Hello, my name is Chris Osmond. Actually my name is really Christopher. Why my mother ever decided to give me that name I will never know. But I go by Chris and I am married to George Virl Osmond Jr.
I was born on August 15, 1947 in Pasadena, California and was raised in the San Fernando Valley. If you ever saw the movie “Grease” then you pretty much know what my childhood was like. That was filmed on my turf and was about my era and I used to cruse Van Nuys Blvd too when I was a teen.
I was an only child. My parents divorced when I was one. My mother remarried (several times) and my father remarried once and stayed married. He had 4 more children. He lived in New York and I lived with my mother in California. I did not see him much throughout my life. In fact, my own daughter Olivia met my youngest stepsister Melanie before I did!
I was a confused teenager like so many of us in the 1960’s. I had no direction. I didn’t do well in school and the only thing that I really enjoyed was my drama classes in high school. My father was an actor, and I found that when I was on stage, for a little while I could be someone else and live in another world other than the reality of my own. I struggled continuously with my lack of self esteem.
My father was a Russian Romanian Jew and my mother was a German Irish Protestant. But neither one was active in their beliefs. So I drifted throughout my youth wondering what life was all about and why I was even alive here on earth. Now maybe some people don’t ever think much about that, but I sure did. At one point I was taking catechism classes, going to synagogue and singing in a Methodist choir all at the same time! I wanted religion to be a part of my life and I had some pretty frank prayers with God about what the point of my life was, why he sent me to the family that I had, and what was true doctrine and what wasn’t.
In my last year of high school, my best friend was a Mormon. She was going to go to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah after high school and she wanted me to apply. I thought she was nuts. I had terrible grades except for getting all A’s in drama and an A in a literature and a Shakespeare class with the greatest teacher I ever had – Mrs. Lobenstein – who taught me the love of reading. But, I humored her and applied anyway.
Well, this was a Mormon University, which my friend had failed to tell me before I applied. But I guess that they had to fill their quota of non-members because against all odds, I got in. Within days of arriving on campus, I could tell that there was really something different about these students. They were all so nice and everyone was always smiling and helpful. But most of all they seemed to have direction and purpose and a doctrinal commitment to integrity, honesty and virtue. How did they get that way?
I began to listen to their missionaries and read the Book of Mormon. It was like a light went on inside of my head. Everything that I was hearing or that I read sounded so familiar. It was as though I had known these truths all along but I had never had anyone articulate them to me before. I was baptized in February of 1966 and have spent the rest of my life in scriptural study and research, and living a life devoted to service, home and family.
After two years of college, I came back to California to work for a year and earn more money to go back to school. That is when I met my gentle husband, Virl. He was so different from anyone that I had ever dated before. He had these wonderful manners. He was kind and soft spoken.
I didn’t know who his family was at the time that I met him. As a convert to the Mormon Church, I had never heard of the Osmond Family and I wasn’t a big fan of Andy Williams so I never saw them on the show except on one Christmas Special. I remember how curious I found it when Virl told me at our first meeting that his family was in Reno, Nevada for two weeks. I knew that he was the oldest child and that there were 9 of them and so a lot of them still had to be in school. So why were they in Reno in the middle of October instead of in school?
On our second date, Virl took me over to meet them. There were all these boys, sitting on the floor in the living room, watching Star Trek (the original TV show). There were all these toothy grins because Virl had brought a girl home. And his mother and father kept dropping names like Andy Williams and something about a tour to Japan. It took me awhile to put two and two together and figure out that they were the kids on that Christmas show I once saw.
I didn’t really have time to process the whole show business thing before Virl proposed. Now Alan was in the Army Reserve Training Camp at the time and when he heard that Virl and I were engaged, he sent Virl a very fatherly letter telling him not to be hasty and do anything that he would later regret. We both had a good laugh over that. But it took awhile until Alan was comfortable with me. I never met him until the day before my wedding.
Shortly after that, Virl and I were in Salt Lake City. He was in college there and I was adjusting to being a part of a very large and possessive family! Now you have to understand that my mother and I had a very reserve relationship. We talked a lot, but we never were the hugging and touching type. The Osmond’s on the other hand were always hugging each other. When they first met me, I got hugged by every one of them. They didn’t even know me yet! By the time I had been embraced by everyone including Mother and Father, I almost couldn’t breathe. They did this every time they saw me. That took a lot of getting used to!
I don’t know what I could tell you about my brothers and sister in law that you probably don’t already know. Half the time fans knew more about them than we did! I have a photo of 9 year old Marie in my wedding line wearing her first pair of stockings and they are all bagged around her knees. (She’ll probably kill me for telling you that). I have another of Wayne watching TV with straws hanging from his top eye teeth like fangs. I remember Jay was always telling jokes and stepping on his own punch lines. Alan was always the “big brother” and brooded over everyone. Merrill was a comedian and when the family got together he became an alter ego that would have us all laughing.
Donny always was the big teaser. He tickled every one and loved fireworks and bottle rockets way too much. Marie was a little girl that had to become tough to survive in a family of almost all men. She learned early to hold her own. She and Mother loved sewing and dolls and it became a passion that Marie turned into a company. Jimmy was the quiet one. He was the youngest and always was being directed what to do. He never said much, just watched and learned – boy did he learn. The whole family has had many more successful years in show business because of his insight!
Then there was Mother and Father Osmond. Mother was this woman full of love and a gentle nature that cared about everyone and reached out to everyone. She knew how to make you feel good about yourself no matter how down you were. Father had a rough exterior. He was the patriarch of a family and his rule was law. But inside he was a marshmallow and melted with every hug or kiss you gave him.
Because they were all in Show business, Virl and I had more interaction with his brother Tom than any of the other family members. The family was always on tour – and mostly they still are. So we did our best to just settle into a quiet normal little family life. We have had all the crazy experiences of raising 7 children and trying to keep our sanity and good sense of humor. We have had our trials and our triumphs. We have learned a great deal about how to get along in and survive a marriage.
When our children started to get married, I realized that there was so much I wanted to share with them. I began to make a list of all the areas I wanted to go over. Then I started writing notes on each one and then the notes became chapters and soon the chapters turned into a book. I called it “A Marriage Primer: What You Need to Know Before you Tie the Knot.” One by one, I gave a copy of it to each of our kids. They shared it with others and pretty soon I was being urged to publish it. I have been writing ever since.
It has been a challenge being married to an Osmond. But then again, it is a challenge to be married to anyone! I was fortunate to be married to a gentle and loving man that tells me every day that he loves me and appreciates me. He has tried his best all his life to love and care for me and our children the best he can. Whenever our kids or I tell him we love him, he always says, “I love you more!” And he does. He has a compassionate, caring and giving heart and I am lucky to be called his wife.
As for our kids, they are all so different that they could have been adopted. I learned that they come through you, but they are not you! They are each individuals with a boat load of unique genetics and no matter what home environment you provide for them, they will become their own separate personalities. You just learn to love them unconditionally, stand back and watch them grow and try not to be too amazed and amused.
Eventually, the kids are gone and it is just back to you and your spouse – the place where Virl and I are right now. It is what his father called “the refining period”. We work together and share a quite different life from our days of child rearing. It has its own set of challenges. There is no such thing as retirement in today’s economy, so we just plug along and do our best to stay healthy and meet our needs – which aren’t many. You find as you grow older that once your basic needs are met, you really don’t need much more and all the silly efforts in younger years to “accumulate” the things of the world were really sort of a waste of time. Life, on its simplest terms, really is the happiest and it's only relationships that matter most.
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