“He wanted children,” Mary says.
“He wanted children, and I think his relationship with Lib, who was so much older than him and they were not able to, is what he explained to me,”Travis says.
Hatcher — who is 16 years older than Travis — was nearing 40 when the couple moved out of North Carolina together. They married in 1991 and were together for 19 years before divorcing three years prior to the singer’s devastating stroke, which is covered in quite a bit of detail in his 2019 memoir, Forever and Ever, Amen. His physical recovery has been a slow process, but mentally Travis is still sharp. Being around children is still something he enjoys quite a bit — he always has.
“Children are very special to Randy and he’s always had a very — you know, some people are magnetic toward children and animals, and Randy was always that charismatic,”Travis says. “If a fan had a crying baby, he would take that crying baby and put it on his lap, and maybe it was just that honey voice of his, that the baby would just look at him and be quiet.”
