Life was different when Magee Elizabeth Moore was born on Feb. 5, 1938.
Her father, Victorio Cario, was an Italian immigrant who came to the United States in 1937 from Calbria, a province situated at the “toe” of Italy’s boot-shaped peninsula. He was 32 when he took 19-year-old Josephine Ciranni as his bride. The family settled in Pittsburgh’s uptown section, occupying a rowhouse along Tustin Street. Josephine attended night school to learn English.
With two older daughters named Eralda and Ida, Josephine knew she wanted her younger daughter to have an American name. Her inspiration came from an unexpected but appropriate source.
Josephine had only her young daughters to depend on when she went into labor. With Victorio working as a railroad laborer many miles away, there was no time to waste in getting Josephine to the hospital. The obvious mode of transportation at the time — a street car to Elizabeth Steele Magee Hospital, a few blocks away in Oakland. She named her new baby Magee (pronounced Maggie) Elizabeth.
Through all her years growing up just outside of Oakland and attending Fifth Avenue High School, Magee has been called “Betty.” She remembers walking to Flagstaff Hill to hear music and visiting Phipps Conservatory every Easter.
Betty has lived in West Deer for 30 years now, raising two children and three grandchildren. She remains forever connected to an earlier, more simple time, when you didn’t need a car to enjoy life and you might meet your lifelong love at a dancehall.
Every once in a while, people still wonder if she’s misspelling Maggie when she offers her name. To the contrary. She knows her connection to the hospital in which she was born, a connection she shares with some 500,000 other “Magee Babies.”
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