The tragic story of popular country duo Joey and Rory Feek is still remembered in Nashville, following Joey’s diagnosis of cervical and colorectal cancer in 2014 and her eventual passing in 2016 just after their daughter Indiana’s second birthday. Rory and Indiana appeared on the Today Show during the Christmas holidays last year, and he talked about his late wife and raising their daughter on his Tennessee farm.
Indiana, also known as “Indy,” is an adorable, smart kid with Down’s Syndrome. During the Today interview, she read from a holiday children’s book written by Rory. He talked about how they were spending the holidays with Joey’s family back in Indiana.
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But there’s another side to this story. It involves Rory finding new love and getting remarried on July 14, 2024. Billy Dukes reported all the happy details in a Taste of Country video uploaded on July 19th.
Now, we know all about Rory’s new wife Rebecca, including the sweet but profound confessions Rory made on his RoryFeek.com blog. One thing about this story that’s straight out of a romance novel is that Rory hired Rebecca to teach Indiana in the one-room schoolhouse he built on his property.
Billy reported, “For about five years, [Rory and Rebecca] just knew each other peripherally, maybe even just professionally.” However, everything changed about a year ago.
Rory Was Ready to Love Again
Page Six reported that 59-year-old Rory married Rebecca “under a beautiful timber-frame pavilion in Greycliff, Montana.” Family and friends cried happy tears as Rory surprised his new wife with an original wedding song, “I DO.” Little Indiana stole the show, jumping for joy in her pretty, blush-colored party dress as her dad and new mom wrapped her in a hug.
On February 29th, Rory posted on his blog how “love” had come to him “softly,” and even he thinks that this new chance at married love is “a little like a Hallmark movie.” Rory revealed that he and “Indy” began spending more personal time with Rebecca, and “they started to grow closer.”
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That’s not the only stunning revelation that Rory made. He explained that Rebecca had also been married once before, but she’d been unable to have her own children. When she applied to teach around a dozen kids at Rory’s one-room schoolhouse, he wrote that he hoped “these could be her children and help fill the incredible void” that she felt.
Rory was feeling a void, too. He wrote that he began “to wonder” if Rebecca was “here for even more reasons.” The real truth is that Indy shockingly told her dad that Rebecca should be her “new mommy.”
Rory described how his love for Rebecca grew before his daughter told him that. He admitted that it “arrived differently than [he] might have imagined if [he] could have even imagined it at all.” Rory’s love for Joey had come into his life “like a lightning bolt,” but with Rebecca, it felt more “like a gentle breeze” or “a whisper” that he heard because his “heart [was] ready to hear it.”
Rebecca Was Surprised by Her Feelings for Rory
Joey also explained why a softer love feels so right at this time in his life. He wrote that as “a man in his late fifties, with a wife buried in the field… and a little girl who has never really known a mother,” his strong but subtler feelings for Rebecca were what God intended.
Rory also revealed that Rebecca knew “a good bit” about Joey’s tragic story before she began teaching at the school and never “imagined being part” of his life in any other way. Rebecca was “as surprised” by the feelings that developed between her and Rory as he was.
She also understands how Rory’s “private life, at times, is everything” and that he’s very open on his “personal blog.” Rory wrote that Rebecca wanted “to see what this new chapter might lead to” given the chance.
He also admitted that Rebecca fell in love before him, but Rory paid his new wife the highest compliment when he wrote that she was “patient and respectful” of his love story with Joey. According to Rory, Rebecca never demanded more than he could give in the moment.
He described her as never pushing, prying, or asking “for more than today together.” As Rory confessed, that’s one of the reasons he loves Rebecca like he does.
The terrible disease of cancer affects so many innocent people. Rory understands that, especially when it comes to Rebecca, because, as he wrote, she’s “known great loss and grief in her own life.”
Rebecca’s patience and understanding grew when both her mother and sister were diagnosed with cancer. Both unfortunately passed from the disease.
Rebecca Met Joey’s Family
Rory and Rebecca are both people of faith. He admitted that faith can crumble, but Rebecca never “lost it.” They’ve grown deeper in their faith together than ever before.
Remember when Rory said on the Today show that he and Indy were spending the holidays with Joey’s family in Indiana? On his blog, he made another confession: a special someone joined them.
He revealed why that was so significant when he wrote, “Rebecca came home with us this past Christmas. To Joey’s home.” Although Rebecca had met members of Joey’s family before as Indy’s teacher, Rory admitted, “I’d never brought anyone ‘home’ before.”
That was a huge deal to him because Rory also wrote, “I don’t really have a home place of my own back in Kansas,” where he’s from. Rory remembers calling Joey’s sisters beforehand to ask “if it was okay.” He wrote, “They were surprised but also excited for me, and for Indy, and for Rebecca.”
Rory was shocked by what happened. He wrote, “I wasn’t sure how it would go… or feel” to have Rebecca with them, but “it felt like she had been coming home with [them] for years.”
If that wasn’t enough of a personal confession, Rory candidly wrote about the first time he said those three words to Rebecca. Rory chose to tell Rebecca when they “had a moment together without Indy.”
He said, “You know I love you, Rebecca. You know that, right?”
Her answer opened up a depth of emotion for Rory. Rebecca “smiled” as soon as Rory told her he loved her. She said that she did know Rory loved her, and Rebecca added, “Thank you for telling me, though.”
At that point, Rory shockingly revealed, “I began sobbing almost uncontrollably.” He felt “afraid” to tell Rebecca he loved her and some guilt because he felt like he wasn’t “honoring Joey’s memory.”
Joey Wanted Rory to Find Love Again
But then, Rory remembered a conversation with his late wife. He wrote that he was sitting with Joey on the porch of their farmhouse, and it wasn’t an easy conversation.
This was “the Fall of 2015,” and Joey and Rory had found out that her “cancer was still spreading,” so they left the hospital and came home to “leave the future up to God and to prayer.” Then, Rory remembered how Joey “began crying.”
Indiana was only 18 months old then, and Joey held her daughter and told her husband, “I’m not crying for me. I’m upset for you.” Rory had been a single dad of two other daughters before he met Joey.
As she cried, she said, “I don’t want you to be a single father again.” Rory couldn’t believe how Joey was only thinking about him “in her fear and pain.”
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Rory wrote, “I pulled her close.” He told Joey that he would be a single dad to Indiana if he had to.
Rory said to Joey, “It’s okay, honey, I’m perfect for the job. I already know how to do it.”
But Joey set the record straight with Rory on the most important thing to her. He wrote that Joey looked at him and said, “If I don’t make it, I want you to love again.”
Rory confessed that Joey’s words made him mad and he said, “I don’t want to hear that.” Still, Joey convinced him.
Rory wrote that Joey took his hand gently, and she said, “I want you to. You’ll need someone. You and Indy both will.”
