Victoria Osteen

== Early life and family ==
Victoria Iloff was born on March 28, 1961, in [[Huntsville, Alabama]]. She lived near [[Marshall Space Flight Center]] where her father, Donald Iloff – a mathematician with [[General Electric]] – was a member of GE’s [[Saturn rocket]] project team led by German rocket scientist [[Wernher von Braun]].<ref name="thebiography.org">{{Cite web|date=2021-08-30|title=The Untold Truth about Joel Osteen's Wife, Victoria Osteen|url=https://thebiography.org/the-untold-truth-about-joel-osteens-wife-victoria-osteen/|access-date=2021-12-14|website=The Biography|language=en-US|archive-date=2021-12-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211214121725/https://thebiography.org/the-untold-truth-about-joel-osteens-wife-victoria-osteen/|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1963, at the age of two, Osteen moved with her family to Houston, Texas, when her father took a position with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ([[NASA]]).<ref name="thebiography.org"/> She grew up in a southeastern suburb of Houston, near the [[Manned Spacecraft Center]] (now known as the Johnson Space Center).

Growing up, Osteen attended a nearby [[Churches of Christ|Church of Christ]], a relatively conservative church, where her mother, Georgine Iloff, taught [[Sunday school]] and her father served as a [[deacon]]. Osteen attended (though did not graduate from) the [[University of Houston]] where she studied [[psychology]] while working in her mother’s jewelry business. It was while working in the jewelry store that she met Joel Osteen in 1985 when he came in to buy a new watch battery.