The much beloved and respected Magdalena Diamos Rubí, née Magdalena Teresa Diamos, known as "Machita" to her family, and "Maggie" to her friends, passed away on Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 89 years of age.

Though Magdalena always considered herself a Tucson native, she was born in Los Angeles, California on October 13, 1934, while her mother, Constance "Dina" Diamos, was visiting there. She was born into a long-established Tucson Mexican American pioneer family: her great-grandmother, Trinidad Yrigoyen Ruiz de Mitchell, a native of Hermosillo, Sonora, having settled in Tucson in the early 1880s, and who later married John James Mitchell, a native of County Tyrone, Ireland. She was the first grandchild of Anita Fidelia Mitchell Yrigoyen de Diamos and Nick G. Diamos, Tucson's "theatre czar," who established the first nickelodeon in Tucson, the Lyric, in 1912 and who eventually operated a chain of motion pictures theatres with his family throughout central and southern Arizona from 1912 to the early 1960s. The Diamos family built the landmark Fox Tucson Theatre, which first opened in 1930. In her teen years, Magdalena and her mother Dina relocated to Monterey Park, California after her mother Married Antonio Bustamante. In 1952, she graduated from Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra, California, and returned to Tucson to attend the University of Arizona that same year. She earned her Bachelor of Art degree in Speech in 1956. She was a second-generation college graduate, her mother having earlier earned her bachelor's degree at the UofA, and she remained a life-long Wildcat fan. At the UofA, she met Paul Rubí, a Winslow, Arizona native and UofA student, and they wed on June 9, 1956, after her graduation. Their first son, Paul Nicolás Rubí was born in 1957. In 1959, Magdalena and Paul moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where she became established for the rest of her life. In June 1960, she gave birth to her second son, David Christian Rubí, and in December 1961, she gave birth to her daughter, Dina Estelle Rubí. Magdalena went back to college in the early 1960s to obtain an elementary teaching certificate, and by the mid-1960s, she became a first-grade teacher at John F. Long Elementary School, in Maryvale, Phoenix, where she would later teach the fourth-grade. While at John F. Long, she was asked by the Cartwright School District administration to form their first Bilingual Education Program, as she was fully bilingual in Spanish and English from her earliest days. After establishing this program, she was later appointed as Assistant Principal to Peralta Elementary School on Phoenix. After several years serving at there, she was appointed to serve as principal at Cartwright School Elementary School, from which she retired in 1992. She enjoyed a long retirement and dedicated herself to family and friends. Magdalena was a pioneer for women's rights by her example and work. At a time when there were almost no female Mexican Americans serving as administrators in Phoenix's public schools, she served as a role model for many. She was a strong advocate for civil rights, racial equality and she lived an example of being just and treating all with equality. She taught her children to respect all people, regardless of race, nationality, gender or creed. She was a model for young, especially minority, women, showing them that they can achieve anything, and was an example for young men, showing them that women are their equals and deserve to be treated as such.

Magdalena is survived by her children, David Christian, and Dina Estelle, by her daughter-in-law, María Lucía Patiño de Rubí and her son-in-law, Don Ortiz, by her grandsons James Raymond Preston and Cristián David Rubí-Patiño, by her siblings Victor Bustamante, Ana Luisa Diamos Bustamante, and Antonio Diamos Bustamante, by her prima hermana Kathy DeGrazia Bushroe, and by numerous cousins, nieces and nephews.

We were all blessed to have this beautiful, magnaminous, and loving lady in our lives. ¡Te queremos, Magdalena, y siempre te querremos! ¡Gracias a Dios por tu vida!