My Mother
Motown Magi Mooney
Motown Magi Mooney gave me the passion for capturing people and occasions with a device known as a camera.
Patty and Magi Mooney in Washington DC, 2004
My Father Won a Film Camera
When my father, Joe Mooney, won a movie camera for his sales prowess at Chrysler, back in 1958. However, my mother (aka “Motown Magi” Mooney) learned how to operate it. Consequently, she filmed our family visits and other special occasions. She filmed us on our wagons, tricycles and bicycles. And then she filmed us doing The Twist when The Beatles were all the rage. Additionally, she filmed weddings, birthdays, funerals. With practice, she excelled at capturing the important moments.
Wagons, Tricycles and Bicycles of the 1950s, 60s and 70s
A few years ago, I sewed some of her clips together and digitized them as short music videos for the family. One of my favorites is called “Wagons, Tricycles and Bicycles of the 1950s, 60s and 70s.”
My Amazing Mom
Magi passed away on Friday the Thirteenth in December of 2013. So I often think about her and the influence she has had on my life journey.
She was a firebrand, a redhead, a silver fox, a wife and mother of six, a radical feminist, a crone. She loved to push triggers on people. Additionally, she was a WAAC in WW2, a peace activist, a Raging Granny, a lover of books, crossword puzzles and Bridge.
And she ran for Mayor of Detroit as a housewife in 1977 and got 1,151 votes.
Magi Mooney in the center of it all, March for Women’s Lives, Washington DC, 2004
When My Mom Retired as a Mother
She formally retired from motherhood by telephoning a reporter by the name of John Askins with the Detroit Free Press and spilling her thoughts. This earned a huge spread in the Mother’s Day edition of that newspaper in the Women’s section. The family took it in stride.
She and I marched in Washington DC together in 2004 in the March for Women’s Lives. She was fierce about human rights, and in particular, women’s rights.
Indeed, she left a huge impression on many people. Can you imagine driving two hours in the dead of winter to a remote cemetery with a 15-minute service with frigid winds whipping? 30 of us did in order to say goodbye to my mother. It was her wish to be buried in a plain pine box – as close to cardboard as you could get. And on this box many of us penned our goodbyes with multli-colored Sharpies.
Sharpie Sentiments at Magi’s Memorial Service
I am the one who dubbed her “Motown Magi” Mooney because she was born in Detroit, and that’s where she died, too. She always believed that her beloved city would rise like a Phoenix from ashes. Whenever I visited her over the last few decades, she would drive me to our favorite places, including the Detroit Institute of Arts, Cass Corridor, the Heidelberg Project, Belle Isle, and we’d zoom around town stopping for a beer or a hot-fudge sundae at Sanders Confectionery, until she was unable to drive anymore.
First-Generation Feminist
As a first-generation feminist in our family, Magi was always decades ahead of everyone else. With her writings, audio recordings and Facebook status updates, she left a blueprint for those of us here on the planet to plumb deep within ourselves to find ways of changing our world for the better.
And so I have created a Pinterest page called Motown Magi in her honor. Enjoy her pithy observations of life as a retired mother.
I also created a short film that has been moving through the film festival circuit and winning awards. It’s called “Woke: Choice Words From My Mother.”
