Stevie Wonder was born Stevland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Michigan. He was Hardaway’s second child with Calvin Judkins and the second of her five children overall.
He was born six weeks early, which combined with the oxygen-rich environment of the hospital incubator to induce retinopathy of prematurity, a condition in which the development of the eyes is stunted and results in the retinas detaching, rendering him blind.
Stevie Wonder parents: Meet Calvin Judkins, Lula Mae Hardaway
When Wonder was four years old, his mother filed for divorce from his father and relocated to Detroit, Michigan, where Wonder participated in the Whitestone Baptist Church choir as a young child.
After rekindling her connection with the father of her first child, who also happened to have the last name of Hardaway, she eventually had two more children and changed her name back to Lula Hardaway.
