One of the greatest joys of my life is knowing that my father met and loved Christi before he died. There was truly something special about her, and even my father could tell. Two years after my father’s death, in 1991, I was in Florida again playing polo, and Christi came down to stay with me. At one point she said, “I’ve got to leave. I have to get back to work.”
I pleaded with her, “I don’t want you to go. What if I said I want to marry you? Then would you stay?”
She said yes.
It wasn’t very romantic, but it was sincere. I didn’t want to spend my life without her. She eventually asked me to get on one knee and to ask her father for her hand. I had never heard you were supposed to do these things—they were completely foreign concepts to me. In my mother’s worldview, people should be getting on their knees to ask us Busches if they could be a part of our family. But Christi was so down-to-earth and reminded me every day what it was like in the real world. She kept me tethered to it.
Christi grew up in a middle-class blue-collar family near Grant’s Farm. She would be the first to bristle if someone said her marriage to me was a “Cinderella story.” She was no pauper by any standards, she’d argue. Her parents both worked hard, and she went to private Catholic schools. I respected her for the morals and values she possessed. She had a no-nonsense approach to life, and she was not one to tolerate disrespect or injustices to anyone.
Becoming a Busch was quite an experience for her—for both of us really. As much as my father loved and adored her, my mother wasn’t her biggest fan. Truth be told, my mother wasn’t a fan of anybody, including her own kids at times. My mother was difficult. It wasn’t until I had entered the real world and the blinders came off that I could see it. In this new light, my mother wasn’t just a regal, noble queen. She was also judgmental and harsh. She was like a “queen on steroids,” as Christi would say. She had a habit of playing us siblings against each other.
Christi’s first meeting with her was less than ideal. My mother was visiting Adolphus at Belleau Farm, and on the way there I told Christi that she doesn’t like long hair or painted fingernails. Of course, Christi had long blond hair and brightly painted fingernails.
“Oh, she’s going to hate me. Why are we going to see her?”
My siblings weren’t exactly welcoming to Christi either. When we got there, my mom and my sisters, Trudy and Beaty, thought it would be a fun sport to order around Adolphus’s wife while she served them. They would laugh and say, “The champagne isn’t cold enough. Go get us some cold champagne.”
“Oh, we love to make them cry,” we heard one of them say after seeing Adolphus’s wife finally break down. The them in this scenario was anyone but a Busch.
Adolphus, meanwhile, was checked out. Christi remembers him sitting in a rocking chair, staring at a little television, tuning our mom and sisters out. He didn’t speak to anybody. I had never seen this as odd, until Christi pointed it out.
At that first meeting, Christi didn’t speak unless she was spoken to, and I didn’t blame her. Christi didn’t feel liked, which was so different from what I saw on the farm—everyone adored her there. Even my brother and our friends had a thing for her. This pompous air was so new to her. She didn’t come from a family like this. She was polite when they talked to her, but she mostly just observed—and what she saw wasn’t pretty.
“Billy, none of this is normal,” she told me. “People do not behave like this.” Christi likes to say that I had put blinders on because I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers.
Mom would often have dinner parties and invite lots of people, including “suitable young women” for me—and she’d do this right in front of Christi. It was cruel and, quite frankly, crazy. But this was all for show. She knew Christi was right for me. In fact, I think she knew that Christi was tough enough to take on the likes of the Busches.
My mom could behave pretentiously in front of others, but one-on-one, she could be kind. On one occasion when Christi and I were engaged and living together, she came to Florida to watch polo. Mom took Christi shopping on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach and bought her a beautiful sweater. On another occasion, Christi was seriously having second thoughts about marrying, not because she didn’t love me, but because of my tumultuous family. She and Mom went out for a walk. Christi assured Mom she wasn’t marrying me for the money and suggested that calling the wedding off may be the best thing.
To Christi’s shock (and mine), Mom said, “You should get married. You absolutely should get married. It’s going to happen. You’re perfect for him. He needs you.”
Christi recalls it being a very tender and sweet moment. Since no one else was around, Christi also knew Mom was being sincere. There was no one for her to put on airs in front of. Christi recalls her being very kind, as if she was a completely different person. For a brief moment, Christ thought my mother was her friend.
But as soon as she was around other people, specifically my sisters, Christi noticed her personality turn, and she began to belittle her again. Now it was Christi who didn’t know whether she was coming or going. And she could sense very clearly what I had been dealing with most of my childhood. I had been so removed from what was “real” or “normal” for so long that I had no idea just how erratic Mom’s behavior was. From that point on, we were both always keenly aware that we needed to be each other’s reality check.
It was clear to Christi, though, just how deep the dysfunction went, and if she was going to build a life with me, it would involve a new set of rules. She knew she wasn’t going to get the support she needed from my side of the family. She wasn’t going to open herself up to the type of ridicule and criticism the other in-laws suffered from. She would be no one’s “beck-and-call girl” nor someone to laugh at.
Early on, she refused to go to many of the family events. Opting to sit out dinners with the family, she’d say, “You go out to the farm with your family. You should be with your family. I just don’t feel like that’s fun for me if they’re not going to be nice. I’m not going to do that to myself.”
Of course, this did her no favors in their eyes. They thought she didn’t care enough about them, and they weren’t used to people not bowing down and worshipping them. They all surrounded themselves with people who were going to tell them they were the greatest, the best. They did this because they liked to have control, and for the first time in their lives, they couldn’t control someone. Christi was her own woman. And I loved her for it.
In 1991, when it was time to send the invitations out for our wedding, my sister Trudy said she would handle ordering them. When we got the invitations back from the printer, they read, “Gertrude Busch is pleased to give her son William Busch away to Christina Myszak.” Christi’s parents were so hurt by those invitations. Even I, who didn’t know to get down on one knee, knew that traditionally it’s the bride’s parents who give their daughter away to the groom.
Christi didn’t raise a fuss, but once again, she was left cleaning up the emotional wreckage with her parents that was created by my family’s lack of empathy.
Despite all the ups and downs, on May 11, 1991, Christi and I were married in a beautiful ceremony on Grant’s Farm at St. Hubert’s, the chapel Dad gave to Mom as a gift when I was born. Immediately following the ceremony, as the sun was setting, Christi and I boarded the coach pulled by four shining bay horses. We coached through the Deer Park, toasting our bond with champagne. The reception was held at the Big House, and many animals were brought down for the party, including Clydesdales, elephants, macaws, and camels. We ate, drank, and danced to live music as we celebrated the night away.
We had spent days and nights before we got married fantasizing about how we would spend the rest of our lives together. I would often tell her our wedding would be in Switzerland, in a chapel in the mountains. Even though the details were a bit off, my dreams of marrying Christi had come true, and I couldn’t imagine living my life without her.
We spent part of our honeymoon in Switzerland, where for a few days we could also enjoy Mom’s company miles from the world that she had to put on a show for.
I think Mom saw a lot of herself in Christi. Mom was in her early twenties when she married Dad. Christi was just twenty-three. They both came from a middle-class background, and both married into this family dynasty. On top of that, Mom had four stepchildren her age to contend with, a larger-than-life husband she had to entertain for, and kids of her own to raise.
It was clear to me that Mom was projecting a lot of her own marriage and past trauma onto Christi. But while Mom’s generation did things without saying a word, Christi’s generation spoke their minds. Not long after we were married, my mom was drinking quite a bit one night while we were out to dinner at a local restaurant in St. Louis. She was with her new(ish) boyfriend, Buck, and we were all sitting there when an older gentleman and his twentysomething wife sat down next to us. Mom walked over to this man and said, “Why are you with this young girl? What about somebody that’s your age? What about somebody like me? What the hell’s the matter with you?”
The poor guy was so taken aback. I recognized him as a distributor owner and knew he was a very wealthy and successful guy. I could see how shocked he was. And his wife was about to cry.
The rest of the dinner took a nosedive. It was clear that seeing an older man with a younger woman had triggered my mother, no doubt because she was once a young wife too.
Later that night, driving home, apropos of nothing, she turned to Christi and said, “Your husband should be cheating on you.”
“Why would I want to be married to somebody who’s going to cheat on me?” Christi replied. “Why would you want that for me? Because it happened to you? You would want that for your son? You would want that for somebody else in the family? I mean it clearly didn’t sit well with you. You’re upset. So why?”
At that point, my mom broke down and explained how my dad was with my godmother, whom we called Aunt Marie, on the day I was being born in the hospital. When he finally showed up, she heartbreakingly went off on my father and explained that he didn’t come up to see her after giving birth to me because he was with Aunt Marie. She was so upset.
Christi wouldn’t let it rest. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be! Don’t you understand? I don’t know why you would want that for anybody else!”
By now we had arrived home and were in the garage, and the two women I loved the most in this world were going at it pretty heavily. Buck had to step in to get them to stop. I couldn’t take it and went into the house.
That argument sealed the deal though. I don’t think my mother had ever doubted Christi’s love for me, but she definitely respected her after that. No one ever had given it back to her the way Christi could and did. She never messed with Christi again.
When we found out Christi was pregnant with our first child—our son Billy—I was so happy. We were finally starting our own family.
Even though my wife and Mom learned to understand each other, my siblings were still on that vicious cycle of dysfunction. When Billy was a baby, my sister Trudy invited us out to her farm in Herman, Missouri. At one point, she asked Christi to go to the store with her to get dinner. As they were driving through the farm, Christi says Trudy became cold and silent.
Trying to break the ice, Christi said, “Trudy, your farm is so beautiful. Everything is so perfect.”
Trudy looked at Christi and screamed, “Don’t you dare! It took ten years before I got this farm, and you will not have anything like this!” She went on and on, railing at Christi. Suddenly, Trudy pulled up to the chapel along the road, cut the engine, and went in and prayed.
She then got back in the car and drove to the grocery store. She never spoke another word to Christi.
When Christi came back to the farm, she was visibly shaken. She asked to leave right then and there. “There is no point even trying with these people. This is bipolar bullshit.” And she wanted none of it—for herself, for me, for our son Billy.
I don’t know if Trudy had a bad day or what happened before Christi got in the car with her. People always have their reasons why they snap that have little to do with who they snap at. I think Trudy had to grow up too fast, had to take care of all of us kids when our mom was away, and was taught never to express her emotions. I am not making excuses for her, or for her behavior, only saying that I understand it in a way that only those who have been raised in the same dysfunction can.
For years, especially following my father’s passing, we siblings had various fallings-out. Adolphus and I were supposed to have shared Belleau Farm. In his will, our father left it to both of us, but when Christi and I tried to visit the farm, Adolphus and his wife wouldn’t let us in the house. They wouldn’t even let us take a drive on the property in the Jeep that belonged to the farm. It was insane. They all put property over their relationships. They were all so worried that someone was going “take” what was “theirs.” Even if it wasn’t “theirs.” Adolphus also thought he was the rightful heir to the Big House, and when we didn’t allow him to take it over (because nowhere in the will did it say that he was the rightful heir), he became incredibly bitter toward us.
We started separating ourselves. Like Christi said, there seemed to be no point in making an effort as we were clearly the only ones trying. We also decided to do things differently. Mainly, we didn’t want our kids to be raised by servants like I was. If we were going to have kids, we were going to raise them ourselves. Our primary goal was to make sure they would be functional and good human beings.
We were there emotionally for our kids. Christi understood their emotional needs inherently, in a way I never really could. She has this very mothering, nurturing way about her. She cares for and loves our kids more than anything in the world. From day one, she has made sure that our kids were my priority too. They came first. Plain and simple. That’s just what you do. If you decide to bring kids into this world, you have to put them first and forgo a lot of other things in life.
When we got married, we both saw it as a blessing that we were able to stay home with the kids as much as possible. She laughs, “I married someone with money. I didn’t look at it as a time to go, ‘Whoo-hoo, I am going to travel the world, go shopping, throw parties, and leave my kids with someone else.’ I looked at it this way: ‘I have money that affords me a life where I don’t have to work, and that lets me be with my kids.’ I want to be with them as much as possible.”
One of the other conscious decisions I made was to just be present. Not only physically but mentally and emotionally. No more checking out. No more leaving the garage when things got too heated. I realized the most important thing I could do for my kids was just to be there for them—whether it was at a sporting event or a rough day at school. My parents were not able to come to my high school graduation. I can’t imagine missing an occasion like that for my kids.
Raising seven children isn’t easy. It’s busy. It’s hectic. But Christi and I wouldn’t change it for the world. We always say, “Seven is heaven.” One of the things we often hear from others that makes us proud is how down-to-earth, respectful, and genuine each of our kids are. They are all hard workers, and besides our beer company, Busch Family Brewing & Distilling LLC, they are all involved with our other family businesses: Busch Production Co.—which includes our reality show and a weekly radio show called Behind the Busch—Béatus perfume, Geist Gear LLC, and Busch Family Real Estate LLC. They also actively participate in the numerous charities the family’s involved with.
Our oldest, Billy, started Geist Gear LLC, a camouflage apparel and activewear company. He learned the meaning of hard work from five years of playing on the Ole Miss football team. Haley, our oldest daughter, has acted in, produced, and directed movies and TV shows. She is now very involved with real estate development and hospitality. Abbey was a fashion major in college and has done some modeling and fashion shows. She promotes our perfume line, Béatus, and is also very much involved with real estate. Gussie, our middle child, played football for the University of Alabama, where he won a national championship. After college he went on to play polo as a professional, winning several national tournaments. He’s active in real estate as well, namely in managing the Busch Family Real Estate Companies, Red Hotel. Grace rides competitively, showing jumping horses nationally. When she’s not participating in world-class competitions, she enjoys spending time with her horses. Maddie attends college at Parsons School of Design. She intends to design her own clothing line one day. She has also worked in the modeling arena. Peter, our number seven, is still in high school and is eager to jump into the business world upon graduation. As our youngest, he has witnessed a lot of the dos and don’ts of being in business. He has already made some impressive real estate investments.
Each of our kids is different, and they each have different needs, personalities, activities, talents, and dreams. Even now that many are grown, nothing makes us happier than when we are all together. The thing that used to drive Christi crazy about me was that I was always childlike. There is an old saying in psychology circles that you’re as old as your first trauma. In so many ways, I will always be five years old at heart. I will forever be the child whose family left him behind while they were at Disneyland. I was alone in a bed, wishing I could be with them. I am also a fifteen-year-old whose sister died and who was never allowed or shown how to grieve. But, in many more ways, that childlike quality has been a blessing. I have enjoyed playing with my kids—because I still feel like a kid. I’d be the first one to jump in the ball pits. Ours is the house that all our kids’ friends want to be at. We have never met some of these kids’ parents, but their children have spent weeks with us. I get it. We’ve made a home here for our kids.
But it’s not all fun and games. We have had high expectations for our kids. We follow the phrase from the Gospel of Luke (12:48), which says that to whom much is given, much will be required. We want our kids to know the importance of giving back. Christi and I take the responsibility of raising children seriously. We very consciously did everything completely opposite to how I was raised and tried to give our kids as “normal” a life as possible, as opposed to a pretentious life. When I had any of my nieces and nephews in the car and they saw a sign for Anheuser-Busch, one of them invariably would brag, “We own that.” Our kids did not say those things. They did not even know we owned Grant’s Farm until they were older. And they only found out because a friend of theirs said, “You know you own Grant’s Farm, right?” Our response was, “No, you don’t.” Because that was the truth. It belonged to me and my siblings, not them.
Christi and I are glad to this day that we did that because when Anheuser-Busch was sold, it didn’t affect our kids to the extent it did other family members, whose identity was linked to being owners. We knew we had to move on and create a new legacy or continue a legacy in a new way. Grant’s Farm and Anheuser-Busch were not our identities. We had a new set of rules. And this time, family truly reigned. Not just our name. Not just our property. Not just our identities as “Busches.”
We believe that the most important legacy we can leave in this world is children who have strong morals and values and contribute positively to society. We’ve worked really hard to make sure our children know our family was what mattered. Because, when it came down to it, when the going got tough, my siblings seemed to forget that.