Carl Raymond Osborne

     Carl was born in 1948, in the sleepy, now nonexistent, company town of Sunflower Kansas. Early in the year, early in the month, early in the morning on April 6 he joined the family of  Robert Edgar Osborne and Thelma Schimmel Osborne, and their first son Robert G.

     They lived there in Kansas, just outside of Lawrence, until 1959. The cold war uprooted Robert and Thelma's small family, having them pack all their possessions, along with four small maple seedlings transplanted into milk cartons, and they traded the great plains for the high desert. They moved to Salt Lake City when Robert took a position as a chemist for the now nonexistent Hercules Aerospace, a company producing missile engines and rocket boosters. Hercules eventually merged with Thiokol and has now been folded up into Northrop-Grumman.

     They settled into the Cottonwood Heights area of the valley where Carl would live for the rest of his life. While studying English Literature at the University of Utah, he met, wooed and married the love of his life Sara Louise Hewett. 

     Carl and Sara were wed in 1972, and made a life together in Salt Lake. They would eventually have 4 children, Megan Kathleen Osborne (Married to Jean-Paul Guidry and now Megan Kathleen Osborne Guidry) Jennifer Marie Osborne, Mark Andrew Osborne and Steven James Osborne (married to Margaret Ann DeNiro Washburn). Megan and Jennifer would also give them 4 grandchildren; Jesse, Mireille, Colby and Geneva, who would be the delight of both Carl and Sara's lives.

     Carl would work diligently at many different jobs in record stores and retail, the longest being with Fred Meyer, now Smith's Marketplace. He never had a prestigious job, but he always worked hard to take care of his family. In his spare time he was an avid reader, woodworker, appreciator and  collector of classical music, and wherever he was living, more and more of the yard would be converted into vegetable gardens that were always the envy of all the neighbors.

     We lost Robert Edgar in 1969, Thelma in 1997, and ever since Carl and Sara have lived in that same house in Cottonwood. Sharing their home at different times with their children, grandchildren and eventually just themselves.

     Carl left us a week before Thanksgiving, quietly in his sleep one morning, next to his sweetheart and wife of 51 years, in his childhood home, under the shade of those same four Kansan maple trees.