Jerry Garcia Wife: Meet Deborah Koons

Jerry Garcia was married to Deborah Koons. They met in the midst of a March 1973 Grateful Dead engagement at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum.

Deborah Koons was an aspiring filmmaker from a wealthy Cincinnati, Ohio-based family who would much later Garcia and become his widow.

After being together for a few months, Garcia began his relationship with Koons. This gradually strained his relationship with Adams and culminated in Garcia leaving Adams for Koons in 1977 precipitating a brief reconciliation with Adams, including the re-establishment of their household.

Koons did not agree with the guitarist’s persistent use of narcotics and moved with the children to the Eugene, Oregon area, living near Kessey, in 1978.