Alberta Gay
| Alberta Gay | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Alberta Williams Cooper January 1, 1913 Rocky Mount, North Carolina |
| Died | May 9, 1987 (aged 74) Burbank, California |
| Cause of death | Bone cancer |
| Occupation | Domestic, schoolteacher |
| Spouse(s) | Marvin Gay, Sr. (m. 1935–1984; divorced) |
| Children | Michael Cooper (born 1933-2010) Jeanne Gay (b. 1937) Marvin Gaye (1939–1984) Frankie Gaye (1941–2001) Zeola "Sweetsie" Gaye (b. 1945) |
Alberta Cooper Gay (January 1, 1913 – May 9, 1987) was an American domestic worker, schoolteacher and the mother of American recording artist Marvin Gaye. Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, she married Gaye's father, minister Marvin Gay, Sr., after relocating to Washington, D.C., in her early twenties. She was the only other person present in the murder of her son committed by his father.
Alberta was born Alberta Williams Cooper on New Year's Day, 1913, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. She had three sisters, Pearl, Tolie and Zeola, and a brother, Aster, but she would endure a troubled childhood while growing up in North Carolina: her father once shot at her mother during an argument. Although her mother survived, her father would later die in a psychiatric hospital. Alberta told David Ritz that she felt she really didn't have a father, and her family didn't put her in a school until she was eight years old.
At 20 years of age, she had a child, a son named Michael, and as a result her mother sent her to live with a relative in Washington, D.C., where she met minister Revd. Marvin Gay in 1934 and after a year of dating, the couple married on July 2, 1935. The young couple first settled at an apartment located at 1617 First Street SW, only a few blocks from the Anacostia River. The First Street neighborhood was nicknamed "Simple City" owing to its being "half city, half country".
Due to his belief he couldn't raise another man's child, Marvin Gay eventually sent Alberta's son Michael to live with Alberta's sister Pearl. Michael Cooper later learned as a teen that Alberta was his mother, according to Alberta's daughter, Jeanne. Allegedly, when Michael began living with his half-siblings, he told young Marvin to stand up against his father's abuse; when he did, Marvin Gay, Sr. responded by sending Michael to live with his aunt, Zeola, another one of Alberta's sisters, in Detroit. However, Jeanne Gay said Michael Cooper was moved to Detroit without the alleged confrontation between father and son.
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