About Johnny Cash Personal Life: His Marriage and Children

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Johnny Cash met 17-year-old Italian-American Vivian Liberto in a roller skating rink in San Antonio, Texas, on July 18, 1951, while in Air Force basic training. They dated for three weeks before Cash was called up for a three-year tour in West Germany. Hundreds of love letters were exchanged between the couple throughout that time.

They married on August 7, 1954, one month after his release, at St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church in San Antonio. Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy, and Tara were their four daughters. Cash moved his family to a hilltop property overlooking Casitas Springs, California, in 1961.

Liberto later stated that she divorced Cash in 1966 due to his serious drug and alcohol misuse, extensive touring, numerous acts of infidelity with other women, and his close friendship with singer June Carter. Their mother then reared their four daughters.

While on tour, Cash met June of the famous Carter Family, and the two fell in love. Cash proposed to June at a live concert in London, Ontario, thirteen years after they originally met backstage at the Grand Ole Opry. On March 1, 1968, the couple married in Franklin, Kentucky. John Carter Cash, their only child, was born on March 3, 1970.

Johnny and June both have only one son. In addition to his four children and John Carter, Cash became a stepfather to Carlene and Rosie, June’s daughters from her first two marriages, to honky-tonk singer Carl Smith and former police officer, football player, and race-car driver Edwin “Rip” Nix, respectively.