All About Joanna Gaines’ Parents, Jerry and Nan Stevens

Joanna Gaines has achieved huge success together with her meals and life-style model, however she has all the time remained true to her roots.

The Fixer Higher star has been vocal about how a lot her mother and father, Jerry and Nan Stevens, imply to her, and thru that, her followers have realized extra about their very own life tales as properly.

Whereas Jerry and Nan may not be within the highlight like their daughter, they’ve all the time been there for her behind the scenes. Nan, who emigrated from South Korea, has impressed Joanna to be passionate in her personal endeavors.

In a 2021 look on The Hoda Present, Joanna attributed her success to her mom, saying she was impressed by “how a lot she fought for the household.”

“By way of the lens of all that she’s been by — the hardship, the combat — I feel, for her, I feel for each of us, it’s that factor of like, Mother, you set me up properly,” she instructed host Hoda Kotb. “You set me up properly due to the best way you fought for this, your ardour, now I get to type of reside in that wake.”

Jerry and Nan could not have social media profiles, or their very own actuality present, however Joanna has shared how a lot she appreciates her mother and father.

Right here’s every little thing there’s to find out about Joanna Gaines’ mother and father, Jerry and Nan Stevens.

They’ve been married for greater than 50 years

Joanna’s mother and father met in 1969. In a 2017 Instagram publish celebrating their forty fifth anniversary, Joanna wrote, “My mother and father met in 1969 when my dad was stationed in Korea and their story is one you hear about within the motion pictures. All the percentages had been towards them however they fought by.”

In her guide, The Magnolia Story, Joanna wrote that Jerry and Nan met at a celebration in Seoul, South Korea. Nan noticed Jerry sitting by himself and instructed a good friend, “That’s the person I’m going to marry.”

In 2022, Nan appeared on Joanna’s podcast, The Tales We Inform with Joanna Gaines, and the pair mentioned how she met her future husband. “You guys had been at a celebration,” Joanna mentioned, and her mother was coy in regards to the particulars. “Oh, who cares, everyone is aware of,” Joanna continued. “She likes the Beatles — it was a pot celebration. It’s advantageous.”

Nan recalled that she and Jerry began spending time collectively after the celebration, till he needed to depart the nation. Two weeks earlier than his departure, he instructed her, “I feel I’m in love with you.” Jerry moved again to the U.S. and the 2 saved up a long-distance relationship.

Finally, Jerry despatched her a airplane ticket and requested her to marry him. Although their households didn’t initially approve, they obtained married in San Francisco throughout the summer time of 1972.

They’d a rocky begin

Whereas their preliminary assembly and love story sound like one thing out of a film, it wasn’t all the time straightforward for Jerry and Nan. In The Magnolia Story, Joanna was candid about how a lot her mother and father fought at the start of their relationship.

“There have been instances, they are saying, once they didn’t suppose they’d make it as a result of all they did was combat,” Joanna wrote.

She later requested her mother about this time on The Tales We Inform. “The primary 12 months was tough as a result of Dad was into medication,” Joanna mentioned, which Nan confirmed. Jerry instructed her they had been “broke” and the pair handled backlash from their households.

Nevertheless, after Jerry’s mom died, he started to view life otherwise, and issues obtained higher for the couple. “He envisioned himself in a casket, together with his household surrounding him, and it hit him simply how wrongly he was dwelling his life,” Joanna wrote in The Magnolia Story. “He knew he didn’t wish to find yourself in that casket the best way he envisioned, leaving my mother alone to fend for herself.”

Nan is from South Korea

Jerry and Nan met in South Korea, the place Nan was born and raised. In 2023, Joanna, her husband Chip Gaines and their household traveled to South Korea to go to the place the place her mother lived and be taught extra about their heritage.

“For years, my mom has talked about taking her three daughters to Seoul, Korea when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom,” Joanna wrote in an Instagram publish. “And for years, that’s all it was — a dream we’d discuss in that ‘perhaps, sometime’ approach all of us do when one thing feels just a bit out of attain. However this 12 months, we determined to lastly guide it, and we satisfied 24 members of our household to return with us to go to the place the place my mother grew up.”

In 2020, Joanna opened up about her background and the way it impressed her youngsters’s guide The World Wants Who You Have been Made to Be. “My Korean heritage is without doubt one of the issues I’m most pleased with,” she mentioned in a press launch. “The tradition is simply so lovely.”

Chip and Joanna met at Jerry’s store

Jerry and Nan finally moved to Waco, Texas, and Jerry opened a tire store. Joanna labored within the workplace, the place she finally ended up assembly Chip.

Chip had really seen her picture earlier than they met. “Her dad made the error of placing an image of the household behind the counter at his store,” he instructed PopSugar in 2018. “I knew I’d marry her in the future simply by the image on the wall.”

The pair later met when Chip got here in to get his brakes fastened. “We met within the ready space and hit it off instantly. He was genuinely participating, and he had such a honest smile,” Joanna recalled.

Nan impressed Joanna’s love for her heritage

Throughout an episode of her podcast, Joanna spoke to her mother about the way it was onerous for her to simply accept her heritage rising up.

“I don’t know that I ever instructed you this, however I all the time needed to say I used to be sorry for dwelling in halfness. And never totally embracing essentially the most lovely factor about myself, which was you,” she mentioned.

Joanna recalled the time she visited New York Metropolis’s Koreatown throughout school. “I didn’t totally personal who I used to be till that second,” she mentioned. “That I’m this tradition, this Korean historical past, this Korean story, my Korean mom, my Korean grandmother. That’s the richest a part of who I’m. And strolling within the fullness of that basically modified the narrative for me.”

Joanna is all the time studying from them

Joanna is all the time taking in necessary classes from her mother and father, as they’re two folks she seems as much as. In a 2021 challenge of Magnolia Journal, she instructed a significant story about her dad.

She recalled {that a} 12 months and a half prior, her dad had requested her to remain and watch the sundown with him earlier than their household went dwelling. She was targeted on getting her children dwelling and in mattress, so she mentioned no.

“It didn’t take me lengthy to remorse that second,” she wrote. “My dad is essentially the most understanding particular person with regards to my household time. An invite to remain and watch the solar disappear with him was a particular request. I noticed I’d held a significant second hostage within the identify of effectivity.”

Although she needed to reschedule their sundown date, she couldn’t — because the COVID-19 pandemic started quickly after. Finally, she and Jerry watched the sundown in his yard whereas socially distanced, and she or he referred to as the expertise a “turning level” in her life.

“Not would I measure my life based mostly on what I achieved in every week, a day or an hour,” she wrote. “Now, it’s time spent in moments just like the one I shared with my dad that I hope outline my lifetime. Time spent abandoning plans to be able to catch a glimpse of one thing really lovely. … Time spent taking in the one view that basically issues: the one unfolding proper in entrance of me.”