LOS ANGELES, June 10 (UPI) -- Stevie Wonder's mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, who helped write some of her son's biggest hits, has died at age 76, it was reported Saturday.
The family revealed Hardaway died May 31, but did not say where or release the cause of death, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Hardaway helped her son write "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" and "I Was Made to Love Her," among others, the newspaper said.
The Alabama native described her tumultuous childhood and the abuse she later suffered at the hands of her husband in Michigan in her 2003 book, "Blind Faith, The Miraculous Journey of Lula Hardaway, Stevie Wonder's Mother."
She thought Wonder's blindness was punishment from God for her past sins, the newspaper said, and tried for years to find a cure through faith healers and traditional medicine.
Hardaway shared the stage with Wonder, 23, when he won his first Grammy Awards in 1974. He eventually bought his mother a house in California's San Fernando Valley.
In a statement to the Times, Wonder said: "We prayed for our mother to have the best. We wanted her to be queen ... We were blessed a million times by the blessing that I received in my life."
Hardaway is survived by her five children, five siblings and 20 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
