Sandy Springs Police Capt. Andrew Spears said Charles “Eddie” Mobley always went out of his way to help neighbors at his auto shop, which was where Veterans Park now sits on Roswell Road.
Helping seniors get air in their wheelchair tires and being an honest mechanic whom people could trust are just some of the reasons the Sandy Springs community remembers “Eddie.”
While Mobley passed away more than a decade ago, his generosity stuck with longtime police officers, spurring them to mount a campaign to memorialize the Vietnam War veteran on the site of his former auto shop.
Strong ties between Mobley and police
Before the City of Sandy Springs incorporated in 2005, Eddie’s Automotive was the Fulton County Police Department’s contracted mechanic. The Sandy Springs Police Department remains a client of the business today.
“I used to work for the Fulton County Police Department and had some interactions with [Mobley] there,” Spears said. “It wasn’t just law enforcement that he helped out. He was very active in the community. What we would see there is him bending over backwards to help the citizens of Sandy Springs.”
Spears said he bumped into one of Mobley’s former friends and clients, Roger Solomon, at an auto repair shop run by a couple of his former employees.
The two started chatting, discovering they had both been working on getting a memorial for Mobley at Veterans Park.
Solomon said someone recommended Eddie as a trustworthy mechanic when he first moved to Dunwoody in the mid ’70s.
“He was a wonderful guy,” Solomon said. “The amazing thing about Eddie was that there were no computers in his day, and even if there were, everything was in his head. He was unbelievable, all over the place, and so honest.”
Spears and Solomon said his care for seniors especially stuck out to them.
“If somebody said, ‘I don’t have the money or forgot the check,’ he said, ‘I’ll take care of it, you pay me when you can,'” Solomon said.
The plan is to have the bench revealed during the city of Sandy Springs Memorial Day ceremony at Veterans Park. Police officers are working to have a representative from the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton, where Mobley now rests, attend the unveiling.
Remembering ‘Fast Eddie’ Mobley
Mobley was born in LaGrange in 1948. After returning from his two years of active duty in Vietnam in the early 1970s, he bought a gas station in unincorporated Fulton County just north of Interstate 285.
Michael Monetta, a former employee who purchased Mobley’s business after his passing, said he thinks longtime police officers are honoring Mobley more than a decade later because “he took care of them.”
Monetta is the longtime owner and operator of Mobley’s former shop, now called Magic Mike’s Automotive.
Monetta said he first met “Fast Eddie” as a 19-year-old at Mobley’s Union 76 gas station, which he owned from 1971 to 1993 at the corner of Roswell Road and Hammond Drive.
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“He had the nickname of ‘Fast Eddie’ when he had a towing service,” Monetta said. “Back in the day, he had those radios and could see if the police had a car impounded. He’d try to beat the other wreckers there.”
When Eddie died after a battle with cancer, Monetta said he called the Sandy Springs Police Department to see if they’d sign on as a client before purchasing his mentor’s business.
After a couple of years, he eventually found an old Mavis Tire shop to lease across the Chattahoochee River in east Cobb County.
“Hopefully, we don’t have to move anymore,” Monetta said. “I miss being down in Sandy Springs, but there’s just nothing down there … they don’t want to have garages.”
Honoring local veterans
Despite moving across the river to another county, Magic Mike’s Automotive is only a 15-minute drive from Sandy Springs City Hall. It’s a slightly longer trip from the new police headquarters and municipal court off Morgan Falls Road.
Like Mobley, customers cite Monetta’s honesty.
Christine Propst, chair of the Sandy Springs Foundation, which is collecting the funds, said the Eddie Mobley Memorial Fund has raised $700 since the nonprofit’s announcement Dec. 30. The goal is to have $4,000 raised before Memorial Day.
The public can donate to the memorial fund by visiting the “Support Us” page on the Sandy Springs Foundation’s website.
