Griffith and Barbara Bray Edwards were married on August 22, 1949, and they adopted two children: a son, Andy Samuel Griffith, Jr. (born in 1957 and better known as Sam Griffith) and a daughter, Dixie Nann Griffith [REF].
Griffith's first serious health problem was in April 1983 when he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome and could not walk for seven months because of paralysis from the knees down [REF].