Chapter 14 Donny Osmond

Going to Church with Kjeld, the Home teacher.

Our home teacher, Kjeld, came over regularly. He invited me to go to church with him. I knew you had to wear a dress for church. I didn’t own a dress. I started to save up for one. When I had finally saved up enough money for one, I went a few times.  I liked church, but few people spoke to me, and I didn’t seem to fit in. When there was a weekly activity, I thought I would go so I could get to know the youth a little better.

The activity started at 7:00 p.m. Sander had just barely gotten his driver’s license. He worked part-time after school and on weekends at a furniture store. He had saved enough money to buy a car. Bent talked him into buying his old car. A car that was falling apart, but Sander didn’t know any better. I asked Sander if he would drive me to church, so he did. When I got there, the parking lot looked empty, but I didn’t think anything of it. I asked Sander if he would go with me, but he said he had better things to do than hang around a bunch of Mormons. Sander dropped me off and told me he would be back at 9:00 p.m.

I walked up to the door to go in, but it was locked. I sat on the curb waiting for Sander to come back and get me. Since it was Fall, it had started to get dark. I was cold and scared. It was a very long wait. I found out later that the evening’s activity had been canceled, but no one had called to let me know. It didn’t seem like anyone cared whether I was there or not, so I decided I would never go to church or any of their other activities again.

Donny Osmond 1974

I was 13 now. I couldn’t wait to grow up and have a family of my own. I dreamed of what it would be like to meet those unborn children who were waiting for me to be their mom. That is what got me through daily life living here.

One day during school lunch hour, I was invited to my classmate’s house. His name was Vicent. He was the cutest boy in our class. He lived just across the street from the school, so we spent the whole lunch hour at his house. While I was there, his older sister put on a record. It was called “Puppy Love” by Donny Osmond. I really liked it, so I asked his sister who Donny Osmond was. She showed me the album cover. It had a picture of Donny Osmond. She told me he was just a few years older than me, and then she added that he was a Mormon who lived in Utah.

Wow! A Mormon, just like me. It must be fate! I was in love. I had it all planned out. We would marry in the Salt Lake Temple, and he would take me away from here, and together we would have a family of our own. It was all so exciting!

With money that I had earned cleaning the laundry mat up the street, I bought some teen magazines that had Donny Osmond’s fold-out pictures in them. I put these posters all over my bedroom walls. I couldn’t wait to hear back from Donny. But the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. By now, I was good and mad at Donny Osmond for not getting back to me. I thought if he couldn’t be bothered to write back to me, well then I wasn’t going to have his pictures on my walls. So down they went and into the trash.  At the time, I thought I was one of a few Mormon girls in the world, and I had no idea that Donny was getting hundreds of fan letters a day.

Standing Up for Myself – 1974

Bent had a good friend named Orla. Orla had invited us to his place for ice cream. When we were done eating, he told us we could take the rest of the ice cream home. The next day, when Sander and I were home alone, Sander asked me to dish up the ice cream for us, so I did. When we were done eating, Sander asked me to wash his bowl and put it away. I told him, since I had dished up the ice cream, he should wash his own bowl and put it away. Sander told me that since I was a female, it was my job.

Sander had not hit me for a long time. He only called me stupid.  I figured that since I was 14, he wasn’t about to hit me, so I stood up for myself. Then Sander kicked the bowl off the table as he ordered me to clean it up. I bravely looked him in the eye and answered, “Clean it up yourself!” Sander stood up, came over, and then punched me really hard in the face. Blood ran out of my nose, down my face, and all over the floor. I think Sander was just as shocked as I was to see all that blood.

Sander was scared of getting into trouble, so he asked me not to tell on him. He offered me 50 cents to keep quiet. I told him I would keep quiet for 75 cents. Sander gave me three-quarters. We then hurried and washed up the blood. My shirt was covered in blood, so I hurried and changed it. When Mom and Bent came home, Mom could tell that I had a black eye. She asked me what had happened. I told her that I had fallen down the stairs. She seemed to believe it. 

At the time, I didn’t know he fractured the bone on the right side of my face.

Over the years, whenever I had a cold, I got an ear infection because the bone had been fractured and was draining mucus into my ear. I ended up having hearing loss in that ear because of it. When I became an adult, I had to have surgery to reconstruct my cheekbone. That was one painful and expensive operation, and to think Sander only had to pay 75 cents for it.

A neighbor lady saw that I had been mistreated. She told me she had noticed that Sander and I always looked neglected, and that I was always in my room, looking out my bedroom window.  She said that she had been thinking about calling the authorities. Inside, I wanted help and wanted to get away from all this neglect and abuse.

Bent and Mom had often threatened me that if I complained to anyone about how I was being treated, then the authorities would take me away and put me in a home where I would be treated much worse. I was afraid of what would happen to me and what Mom and Bent would do to me if I told someone. So I told the neighbor lady that my brother and I were fine, so she never called the authorities.

Bent’s Birthday. August 21, 1974