As a young girl, Mattie Murrey was a daredevil. In her rural, religious Minnesota community, girls like her weren’t supposed to be doing anything on Sunday, much less racing motorcycles – but she was out there on the road, 12 years old and racing against cars on her Suzuki 125.
Her given name was Martha, but in those days, Mattie went by “Matt.”
“Matt was a tomboy. Matt would ride anything that went fast,” Mattie says. “Not for the adrenaline rush, just because I could, and enjoy the freedom, the wind in my hair.”
Mattie’s passion for racing was kept a secret when she was young. Because she was a girl, she feared she wouldn’t be taken seriously – or worse, she’d be banned from riding her motorcycle. To compete with the boys in her community that raced their bikes, Mattie dressed up as a boy and wore a helmet. And in all her races, Mattie says she won almost every time.
“It wasn't about a competition with other people, it wasn't about a competition with the car, it was all about me and the discovery of my strengths,” Mattie explains. “And that had not been pointed out to me as a young woman or a young girl.”
As much as she loved the freedom of racing motorcycles, as she got older, Mattie was forced to give up her passion. She was going to a strict, religious college, and she decided to “grow up” and embrace the role that her community had laid out for her. For Mattie, that meant becoming a dutiful wife and mother as well as an active member of the church. As she left for school, Mattie started going by her birth name again – Martha.
“Martha was a very good homemaker,” Mattie says. “Martha was submissive. Never weak, but subdued.”
Mattie committed, and at college she found a man who would become her husband. He was kind and funny – but he forbade Mattie from riding motorcycles, something she missed. Despite this, for a while, she was content. Mattie supported her husband as he became a leader in their church, and she established herself as his faithful wife and mother to their children.
But she knew something wasn’t quite right.
One night, everything changed. Mattie was visiting a friend with her husband and went out into the garage to fetch something. When she turned on the lights, she suddenly saw it: a motorcycle. She asked her friend’s husband if she could go for a ride, and he agreed. The ride was everything that Mattie remembered. But what happened when she got back would start Mattie on a path that led away from everything she had ever known.
To hear the full story, listen to “Mattie And The Motorcycle” now.
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Episode Transcript
STEPHANIE FOO: In a rural Minnesota town, in the ’90s, most Sundays you’d find Matt sitting in a ditch, waiting. The ditches there are deep. So, if you drove by you most likely wouldn’t see Matt from the road. And that was the whole point. A car would come zooming down the road, Matt would grip the handlebars of an old Suzuki 125 motorcycle and start counting. Timing was everything. 3-2-1 GO!
MATTIE MURREY: And when the car passed, I would hit the accelerator kickstand already up and just race that car with all my heart, hair flying, big grin, bugs in my teeth at the end of the ride with just the weeds whacking my leathers.
STEPHANIE FOO: Matt would go faster and faster and then hit an incline and launch into the air. Picture it, 12-year-old Matt flying through the air at 45 mph. Now picture the look on the driver’s face as she sailed past them.
STEPHANIE FOO: Did they look at you with awe?
MATTIE MURREY: No, most of the time they didn't know I was there, so it was shock, a surprise.
STEPHANIE FOO: That sounds so fun.
MATTIE MURREY: It was.
STEPHANIE FOO: Matt’s given name was Martha but that didn’t really capture who she was.
MATTIE MURREY: Matt was a tomboy. Matt would ride anything that went fast, not for the adrenaline rush, just because I could, and enjoy the freedom, the wind in my hair. That was Matt.
STEPHANIE FOO: Matt was a daredevil. Never backed down from a challenge. In the religious community she belonged to, you’re not supposed to do much of anything on Sundays, let alone race cars on a motorbike. So, for years, she kept it a secret. But then Matt grew up. And she was told to stop hanging out in ditches.
STEPHANIE FOO: This is Home. Made., an original podcast by Rocket Mortgage about the meaning of homes, and what we can learn about ourselves in them. I’m Stephanie Foo. In this episode, a woman is forced to choose between her religious community and the one place where she felt most at home – on her motorcycle. Trigger warning. There is a very brief reference to domestic abuse in this episode.
STEPHANIE FOO: Matt grew up in northern Minnesota in a hand-cut log home in between Lake Plantagenet and the Schoolcraft River.
STEPHANIE FOO: Matt’s dad was a physician. He once tended to a woman in labor for 3 whole days during which the woman spoke to him at length about her religion. By the time she gave birth, Matt’s father had converted. And from that moment on, her family became very religious. They attended church on Wednesdays and Sundays. Sometimes twice on Sundays. And the church and other church members were the center of their world.
STEPHANIE FOO: As a little girl, how did you picture God?
MATTIE MURREY: I pictured God as a big man with the beard and long flowing robes. All seeing, all everything.
STEPHANIE FOO: If there was a movie star or something that God's personality was like, was there one?
MATTIE MURREY: So, God would be like Sam Ellio