Who was Opie's mom and what happened to her? It was pretty unusual for there to be ANY single dad's during the 1960's!!

Opie's mom was dead, but it never said on the show how she died. Actually it wasn't too unusual to have single, widowed dads on TV in the early 60's. "My Three Sons" and "The Rifleman" also featured men who were raising their sons alone.

I was not very clear in my first post..... I meant in real life it was practically unheard of to have single dad's really raising children, so it is interesting that tv producers made several shows with that theme. Thanks for the info on Opie's mom!

And there were a few single moms, too, on sitcoms in the 60's; Lucy and Vivian, Kate Bradley, Julia. Television liked single parents because that allowed for more situations around the stars; they could be involved in romantic scenes or escapades. It was true, though, that almost the only way a single dad would have fulltime custody of his children would have been if he were a widower, as Andy Taylor, Steve Douglas, Lucas McCain, and Tom Corbett were.

But we don't seem to be given much background about the deceased mother in any of these. MTS is the only one I know which has flashback scenes where the deceased mother appears. On TAGS I don't remember that Opie's mom's name is even mentioned, nor whether Opie is supposed to even have a memory of her or not.