Mark Volman Wife: Inside His Marriages to Pat and Emily
When you search “Mark Volman’s wife,” you’re really trying to connect the joyful voice from “Happy Together” with the real people who shared his everyday life. You know Mark Volman as the big-smiling frontman of The Turtles and half of Flo & Eddie, but away from the stage, two women—Pat and Emily—walked beside him through fame, family, divorce, illness, and the very end of his life.
Who Is Mark Volman?
Before you look at his wives, it helps to ground who Mark Volman actually was. He co-founded The Turtles, the 1960s band behind “Happy Together,” “Elenore,” and other pop hits that you still catch in movies and commercials. Later, when record label issues kept him from using his own name, he reinvented himself as Flo in Flo & Eddie, touring with Howard Kaylan, working with Frank Zappa, and appearing on records you might not even realize he’s on.
He didn’t just fade into nostalgia tours. Mark went back to school, earned degrees, and eventually became a music professor, mentoring young musicians while still performing on Happy Together package tours. So when you think of him, don’t just freeze him in time as a 1960s rock star. His life stretched across decades, and that long timeline is exactly why his relationships are more layered than a simple “one wife, one story” setup.
Mark Volman’s First Wife: High School Sweetheart Pat Hickey
The first big chapter in the “mark volman wife” story starts in high school. Mark married his high school sweetheart, Patricia “Pat” Hickey, in January 1967, right as The Turtles were on the edge of exploding into full-on pop stardom. Imagine getting married and almost immediately watching your husband’s face end up on posters, TV, and magazine covers.
Pat wasn’t signing up for a quiet, predictable life. She was marrying into a whirlwind. While Mark was suddenly jetting around, recording, touring, and chasing hits, she became the steady force at home. Together, they had two daughters, Sarina Marie and Hallie Rae. Mark’s life became a blur of studios, buses, and hotel rooms; Pat’s life became a mix of childcare, holding down the fort, and dealing with the ripple effects of his career.
Their marriage lasted for around twenty-five years. That’s a long time in any context, but especially long in the world of rock and roll. Eventually, though, the strain caught up with them, and they divorced in the early 1990s. You don’t have to imagine scandal to understand why. Fame, constant travel, financial ups and downs, and the pressure of always being “on” can wear down even the strongest bond.
Life With Pat: Fame, Family, and Strain
If you zoom in on those two and a half decades, you see the familiar but rarely discussed side of music fame. Mark was on stage, in studios, and on the road with The Turtles, then Flo & Eddie, and later as a side man and collaborator. His world was built on crowds and applause.
Pat’s world looked very different. She was the one making sure the kids were okay when he was out of town, the one keeping daily life going when schedules shifted at the last second, and the one dealing with the emotional fallout when work was stressful or the industry got messy. Being married to a musician often means learning to live with absence, uncertainty, and late-night phone calls from faraway places.
By the time their marriage ended, they had shared a huge piece of life: the explosive youth, the grind of the 1970s and 1980s, and the transition into middle age. Even when romantic love doesn’t survive that, the shared history never totally disappears, especially when children are involved.
Mark Volman’s Second Wife: Emily Volman
The next chapter in the “mark volman wife” story belongs to Emily, his second wife. Mark married Emily in 2000, at a very different point in his life. The wild early days of pop fame were long behind him. He was older, more reflective, and increasingly rooted in teaching, faith, and mentoring, while still performing with nostalgia tours.
Emily met him in that later-life phase, when the game wasn’t about chasing the next hit single, but about balancing performance with a more settled rhythm. Their relationship grew out of that stage of life, and they built a marriage that fit who he had become: a working musician, a storyteller, and a professor.
Their marriage lasted about fifteen years, ending in divorce in 2015. On paper, that could look like just another rock musician’s second marriage that didn’t last. In reality, what happened after the divorce makes their relationship far more interesting—and far more human.
Emily’s Role in Mark Volman’s Later Life and Illness
Even after they divorced, Emily didn’t simply disappear from his life. When Mark was later diagnosed with serious health issues, including cancer and eventually Lewy body dementia, she remained deeply involved. She supported him through doctor visits, touring decisions, and the difficult process of watching his body and mind change.
You can imagine what that took: patience, loyalty, and a willingness to stay close even when the legal bond of marriage was gone. In interviews and tributes, Emily talks about his humor, warmth, and his big smile, even when he was sick. She doesn’t speak like someone who merely “used to be married” to him; she sounds like someone who stayed emotionally invested right to the end.
When Mark died in Nashville in 2025, he wasn’t alone. Emily and one of his daughters were with him. That picture says more than any bio line. Officially, she was an ex-wife. In reality, she was still part of his inner circle, caring for him in the most vulnerable moment of all.
How Mark Volman Looked Back on Love and Family
In his later years, especially around the time he wrote his memoir Happy Forever, Mark talked openly about his life with a mix of gratitude and honesty. He didn’t pretend he had been the perfect husband or father. He acknowledged that the demands of his career kept him away from home more than he would have liked and that he made mistakes.
At the same time, he spoke proudly of his daughters and warmly about the women who’d been central in his life. He seemed to understand that relationships change: love can endure in new shapes, even after divorce, and family can expand to include ex-wives, current partners, and grown children in the same emotional orbit.
When you look at the people around him at the end—Pat still in the picture as the mother of his children, Emily by his side as both ex-wife and caregiver—you see a man who, despite all the messiness, had managed to keep genuine connections alive.
Featured Image Source: rollingstone.com
