All About Joanna Gaines’ Parents, Jerry and Nan Stevens

Joanna Gaines has achieved huge success with her food and lifestyle brand, but she has always stayed true to her roots.

The The upper part of the fixator star has been vocal about how much her parents, Jerry and Nan Stevens, mean to her, and through it her fans have also learned more about their life stories.

Although Jerry and Nan may not be in the limelight like their daughter, they were always there for her behind the scenes. Nan, who immigrated from South Korea, inspired Joanna to be passionate in her endeavors.

Appearing in 2021 Walking ShowJoanna credited her success to her mother, saying she was inspired by “how much she fought for the family.”

“Through the lens of everything she’s been through – the hardships, the struggle – I think, for her, I think for both of us, that it’s like, Mom, you set me up well,” she told host Hoda Kotb. “You set me up well because of the way you fought for this, because of your passion, now I kind of have to live in that state.”

Here’s everything there is to know about Joanne Gaines’ parents, Jerry and Nan Stevens.

They have been married for more than 50 years

Parents of Joanne Gaines, Jerry and Nan Stevens.

Joanna Gaines Instagram

Joanna’s parents met in 1969. In a 2017 Instagram post celebrating their 45th anniversary, Joanna wrote: “My parents met in 1969 when my dad was stationed in Korea and their story is the one you hear about in films. All the odds were against them, but they fought.”

In his book, The story of the magnolia, Joanna wrote that Jerry and Nan met at a party in Seoul, South Korea. Nan noticed Jerry sitting alone and said to her friend, “That’s the man I’m going to marry.”

In 2022, Nan appeared on Joanna’s podcast, The stories we tell with Joanna Gaines, and the couple discussed how she met her future husband. “You were at a party,” Joanna said, her mom coy about the details. “Oh, who cares, everyone knows,” Joanna continued. “She loves the Beatles – it was fun. It is OK.”

Nan recalled that she and Jerry started spending time together after the party, until he had to leave the country. Two weeks before he left, he told her, “I think I’m in love with you.” Jerry returned to the US and the two continued their long-distance relationship.

Eventually, Jerry sent her a plane ticket and asked her to marry him. Although their families did not approve at first, they were married in San Francisco during the summer of 1972.

They had a rough start

Parents of Joanne Gaines, Jerry and Nan Stevens.

Joanna Gaines Instagram

Although their first meeting and love story sounds like something out of a movie, it wasn’t always easy for Jerry and Nan. IN The story of the magnoliaJoanna was honest about how much her parents fought at the beginning of their relationship.

“There were times, they say, when they didn’t think they would make it because they were just fighting,” Joanna wrote.

Later she asked her mom about that time The stories we tell. “The first year was hard because dad was on drugs,” Joanna said, which Nan confirmed. Jerry told her they were “broke” and the couple dealt with their families’ backlash.

However, after Jerry’s mother died, Jerry began to look at life differently and things took a turn for the better for the couple. “He imagined himself in a coffin, with his family surrounding him, and he realized how wrong he had been living his life,” Joanna wrote in The story of the magnolia. “He knew he didn’t want to end up in that coffin like he envisioned, leaving my mom alone to fend for herself.”

Nan is from South Korea

Joanna Gaines and her mother Nan Stevens.

Joanna Gaines Instagram

Jerry and Nan met in South Korea, where Nan was born and raised. In the year 2023, Joanna, her husband Chip Gaines, and their family traveled to South Korea to visit the place where her mother lived and learn more about their heritage.

“For years my mother has talked about taking her three daughters to Seoul, Korea when the cherry blossoms are in bloom,” Joanna wrote in an Instagram post. “And for years that was all it was — a dream we’d talk about in that ‘maybe one day’ way we all do when something seems a little out of reach. But this year we finally decided to book it and we convinced 24 members of our family to come with us to visit the place where my mom grew up.”

In 2020, Joanna opened up about her origin story and how it inspired her children’s book The world needs what you were made to be. “My Korean heritage is one of the things I am most proud of,” she said in a statement. “The culture is so beautiful.”

Chip and Joanna met at Jerry’s store

Joanna Gaines and her father, Jerry Stevens.

Joanna Gaines Instagram

Jerry and Nan eventually moved to Waco, Texas, and Jerry opened a tire shop. Joanna worked in an office, where she eventually met Chip.

Chip actually saw her photo before they met. “Her dad made the mistake of putting a picture of the family behind the counter in his store,” he told PopSugar in 2018. “I knew I’d marry her one day just by the picture on the wall.”

The pair later met when Chip came to fix his brakes. “We met in the waiting room and immediately hit it off. He was genuinely attractive and had such a genuine smile,” Joanna recalled.

Nan fostered Joanna’s love of her heritage

Joanna Gaines with her mother Nan Stevens and sisters Mary Kay McCall and Teresa Criswell.

Joanna Gaines Instagram

During an episode of her podcast, Joanna talked to her mom about how difficult it was to accept her heritage growing up.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I’ve always wanted to say that I’m sorry for living half-heartedly. And I didn’t fully accept the most beautiful thing in me, which is you,” she said.

Joanna recalled the time she visited Koreatown in New York during her studies. “Until that moment, I didn’t fully know who I was,” she said. “That I am this culture, this Korean history, this Korean story, my Korean mother, my Korean grandmother. It is the richest part of who I am. And walking in the fullness of that really changed my story.”

Nan has maintained her heritage by displaying Korean furniture and memorabilia in Joanna’s childhood home in Rose Hill, Kansas.

“The formal living room was the room that drew me in,” Joanna said during an interview with Ideas of order podcast in January 2024 “Now I understand what it was and the meaning of that room to her. What my mom was trying to do was feel known and seen in this one space.”

Joanna is always learning from them

Parents of Joanne Gaines, Jerry and Nan Stevens.

Joanna Gaines Instagram

Joanna always learns important lessons from her parents because they are the two people she looks up to. In the 2021 edition Magnolia Journalshe told a meaningful story about her dad.

She recalled that a year and a half ago her dad had asked her to stay and watch the sunset with him before their family went home. She was focused on getting her kids home and in bed, so she said no.

“It didn’t take me long to regret that moment,” she wrote. “My dad is the most understanding person when it comes to my time with my family. The invitation to stay and watch the sun disappear with him was a special request. I realized that I was holding a significant moment hostage in the name of efficiency.”

Although she wanted to move their departure date, she couldn’t – because the COVID-19 pandemic started soon after. Eventually, she and Jerry watched the sunset in his backyard while socially distanced, an experience she called a “turning point” in her life.

“I would no longer measure my life based on what I accomplished in a week, day or hour,” she wrote. “Now it’s time spent in moments like the one I shared with my father that I hope will define my life. Time spent abandoning plans to catch a glimpse of something truly beautiful. … Time spent looking at the only view that really matters: the one opening in front of me.”

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Source: HIS Education