GAR OSTEN
(1923-1991)

©2001 by Donna Cunningham

Gar Osten was--and doubtlessly still is--the only astrologer ever to practice in my home town of Newton, Iowa, an area that was fairly conservative at that time. He discretely conducted a local practice, but enjoyed a large national following with mail charts, which he calculated by hand and typed on a manual typewriter.

Gar wrote for popular astrology magazines and lectured at national conferences and for the astrology group in nearby Des Moines. He was a member of the AFA from 1977 until his death. His small Sun sign forecast booklets sold over 3 million copies. He wrote one book, published in 1976, Astrological Chart of the United States from 1776 to 2141. Why he stopped at precisely 2141 is unclear, but there was bound to be a good reason. Gar Osten knew his stuff.

I wish I could say he initiated me into the mysteries of our ancient art in my youth, that I soaked up this old pro's legacy of decades of experience and observation, but I cannot. I never even knew he existed until 15 years after I graduated from the same high school he did and left for college. While I was a teenager, we could have passed each other countless times on the streets or stood in line at the Safeway together, and I never would have had an inkling of who he was. At that all-knowing age, I probably would have considered him a kook. We never did meet on my sparse visits home, though we exchanged a couple of letters after I began publishing astrology articles of my own.

We astrology lovers are everywhere today, and even in remote areas, we have access to like-minded people instantaneously through e-mail and chat rooms. As a single man in that era and that place, Gar must have endured a great deal of loneliness. If you had a professional astrologer in your own small community, send me the name and some details for this memorial site as well, so these folks will not be forgotten. Donna

Serendipity strikes again! I had been looking for information about Gar for well over a year, and then on June 28, 2001, I put his name into the Google search engine, just on the odd chance that this much more powerful tool would come up with something about him. Sure enough, I happened across the University of Iowa Library collection of Iowa Writers, which was the repository for his personal papers. I emailed them, but by the time the relevant reference librarian got back from vacation, it was July 6.

It turned out that his papers had been sealed for the ten years since his death on July 3, 1991, and were just now being unsealed and available for use. The photo above and some of the information now added comes from Papers of Gar Osten, Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. Special thanks are due to Librarian Kathyrn Hodson.

BIRTH AND DEATH DATA: Ed Dearborn, our astrological historian, supplied the following from the death notice published in the AFA Bulletin for November, 1991. Gar Osten was born on August 20, 1923, in Marshalltown, IA, time not given. He died on July 3, 1991.

Larry Jordan writes for this memorial:
I first met Gar back around 1971 or so when I encountered him at a TV station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa -- my hometown. As he shook my hand, he said "You're a Libra, aren't you?" He was correct. He went on to tell me "You just made a major purchase...a new car." Again, he was right. Then he told me I was going to be changing jobs shortly (indeed, my employment situation had abruptly changed). I was astonished.

When he made TV appearances and offered his predictions, I taped some of them and was surprised how accurate he was when playing them later. He was, for instance, the only guy I know who correctly predicted the date of President Nixon's hospitalization (from phlebitis). This was uncanny since Nixon had been in fairly robust health, and not been hospitalized for many years. I remember Gar always felt that Mr. Nixon had had an undisclosed health problem (he surmised a heart attack) that had kept him out of the public eye for long stretches of time, though this was never publicly acknowledged by the White House.

We became friends, and along the way he prepared a rather lengthy astrological chart for me. I remember it was typed double-spaced on legal-size paper and ran at least 20 pages. He had gone back and told me what had happened in my life, including family events he could not have known about (plus the year of my father's death). He also made a number of predictions which seemed rather startling at the time -- among them that I would be married twice, the first time to a woman who already had children. (Again, he was correct). He even told me I would live around water, down in Florida. I thought this was the most far-fetched prediction, but it turns out I did, indeed, move to Florida and lived near the ocean around 1983.

Unfortunately, I loaned my copy of my personal astrological chart to someone who lost it. A year or two passed and one day I got a call from a secretary at the place I formerly worked, who told me that while moving desks they had discovered my chart had slipped behind some furniture! I was thrilled to hear this news, but shocked when Gar himself called me a few minutes later to say he was in Cedar Rapids for a visit. He knew nothing about the rediscovered chart. Believe it or not, I once again let this chart slip through my fingers and this time I never had it returned.

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CREDITS: This background was created in Paintshop Pro from clipart from Iband. This memorial is by Donna Cunningham.