Barbara Mahoney Brooks, a mother, author, and Georgica Beach fixture who was the matriarch of an informal artist and surfer commune in the earliest days of wave riding there, died of natural causes on Jan. 14 in New York City. She was 91.

Mrs. Brooks, whose second marriage to John Brooks, a New Yorker magazine writer and novelist who died in 1993, is perhaps best known for a memoir, “A Sensitive Passionate Man,” published in 1974 about her love affair and marriage to Dennis Mahoney. In it, she chronicles how her first husband’s alcoholism ripped the family apart and eventually caused his death. The book, a best seller at the time, was reworked into a fictionalized and favorably reviewed TV movie in 1977, starring Angie Dickinson and David Janssen.

Mrs. Brooks’s memoir thrust her into the literary and intellectual worlds of New York and East Hampton. Her property, in the Georgica area, became affectionately known as Mahoneyville and was a second home and hub for parties, meals, and creative living for her four sons in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, as well as their friends and their children.

Barbara Elizabeth Smith was born in Washington D.C., on Dec. 17, 1925, one of two children of a father who put himself through law school at night and eventually ended up working at the Interstate Commerce Commission. She graduated from Bennington College in the 1940s. By then she had met Dennis Mahoney, but their courtship was cut short when, as an Army infantry scout, he was sent to Europe ahead of the United States forces in the bloody Battle of the Bulge. Mr. Mahoney was shot through both legs by a sniper. While recovering in occupied Germany, he saved enough money, made by selling American cigarettes on the black market, to pay for his lover’s passage. They escaped to Paris for a few perfect days of happiness that she would often later recall.

Mr. Mahoney would go on to complete Harvard Law School on the G.I. Bill of Rights and begin a successful career in Manhattan. They were married in 1951. In the 1950s, they began to visit East Hampton and in 1955, for the exorbitant sum of $25,000, they bought a farmhouse and outbuildings on Lily Pond Lane near what was then the Georgica Life-Saving Station from Erastus Dominy.

The two-acre property had a house, cottage, and a barn, and the Dominys had run a boarding house there. To pay for the purchase, Mrs. Brooks also operated a boarding house for a few years and rented the outbuildings. The sculptor Bill King and his wife lived in the barn for several years, his sculptures in various stages of completion scattered around and some life-size figures installed to appear as if they were emerging from the hedges.

The core of Dennis and Barbara Mahoney’s social group were Irish Catholic families — the O’Connells, the Raymonds, the Shamashes, the Connicks, the Sprayregans, the McGiverns, and others, whose men had served in the war and gotten their shot at a good life thanks to the G.I. Bill.

Mahoneyville buzzed with life in the summer — with art, surfboards, and parties, and teenagers coming and going. The jetties and dunes at Georgica were home turf for their four sons and their friends, who took up what was then the new sport of surfing. By the late 1960s, the happy veneer at Mahoneyville was cracking. After Dennis Mahoney’s death in 1970, Mrs. Brooks turned to raising her sons and writing the memoir. It was recognized for its brutal honesty about alcoholism, which at the time was little discussed and poorly understood. It was her only book. Devastated by his father’s death, Curtis Mahoney was swept up by drugs and alcohol, which eventually killed him 1980.

Mrs. Brooks remarried in 1983, launching a new, happy chapter of her life. John Brooks was well known and much respected in New York literary circles, and Mrs. Brooks, an intellectual herself, slid comfortably into the role of literary spouse. She was known for a wry wit, kindness, and devotion to her family. She was adored by her sons and grandchildren and revered for her love, inner strength, and perseverance in the face of the loss of her first husband and second oldest son.

After Mr. Brooks died, she continued to split her time between New York and East Hampton, though she spent much of the year here, where her three sons and her grandchildren would gather spring, fall, and summer. In the warm months, she was a Georgica Beach institution, walking the beach to the jetties, often with a son, grandson, or friend.

Her surviving sons are Dennis Mahoney of Brooklyn and East Hampton, Nicholas Mahoney of New York City, and Seamus Mahoney of Minneapolis. Five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren also survive.

Wakes will be held at the McLaughlin Funeral Home at 9620 Third Avenue in Brooklyn tomorrow, from 2 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m. A funeral Mass will be said at St. Patrick’s Church at 95th Street and 4th Avenue in Brooklyn on Saturday at 9:30 a.m.

After the Mass, friends and relatives will be invited to East Hampton for Mrs. Brooks’s burial at Green River Cemetery in Springs. A reception will follow.

Irving Schiffman, a former textile executive and a summer resident of East Hampton for more than 50 years, died at his Manhattan residence on Dec. 15 of congestive heart disease. He was 92 and been ill for 18 months.

A lover of classical music who regularly attended concerts in New York City and Bridgehampton, he also loved the out-of-doors, particularly in East Hampton, where he enjoyed gardening, fishing, and bird-watching. He was a longtime tennis player and a member of the facility now known as Sportime in Amagansett. He had been employed by Falk Fibers and Fabrics, which was based in New York.

 Mr. Schiffman was an active member of Quest, a school for continuing education run by and for senior citizens in the city. He  taught there and attended classes, studying  European cultural history, the impact of Chinese immigration on America, and the Adams political family, among other subjects. His family said he loved learning and his experience at Quest.

  He was born on Sept. 21, 1924, in Dover, N.J., to Max Schiffman and the former Sadie Schwartz. He grew up there, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Drew University in Madison, N.J. After graduation, he lived in the Chelsea and Greenwich Village neighborhoods of Manhattan.

Mr. Schiffman and Ruth Goodman were married on Nov. 24, 1954. They settled in Englewood, N.J., where they lived for 19 years and raised three children. The couple began to spend time in East Hampton in the mid-1960s, and bought a house on Pantigo Road in 1968. In 1978, they made an apartment on West 15th Street in Chelsea their winter residence.

Along with his wife, Mr. Schiffman’s three children survive. They are Amy Schiffman of Santa Monica, Calif., Susan Schiffman of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and Claire Schiffman of Pleasantville, N.Y. Six grandchildren also survive.

A funeral was held on Dec. 18 at the Greenwich Village Funeral Home, Rabbi Ethan Linden officiating, followed by burial at Baron Hirsch Cemetery on Staten Island.

Mr. Schiffman’s family has suggested memorial contributions to Quest, care of Michael Wellner, 25 Sutton Place South, New York 10022.

Matthew Henry Yuska of Accabonac Road in East Hampton died of pneumonia on Dec. 22 at the Long Island State Veterans Home in Stony Brook. Mr. Yuska, who was 87, was born on Jan. 7, 1929, in East Hampton to Paul Yuska and the former Stella Munchi.

He is survived by a son, Jonathan Yuska of East Hampton. His wife of 68 years, the former Delia Maranville, died on Oct. 23.

Ute von Engelhardt, one of the first Pan American World Airways stewardesses and a longtime resident of East Hampton, where she worked at a number of well-known shops, died unexpectedly on Dec. 31 while visiting her sisters in Germany. She was 74 and had not been feeling well before leaving this country on a holiday visit.

Ms. von Engelhardt worked all over the world starting in the 1960s, and had been on flights with troops moving in and out of Vietnam. Known as Uta, she first came to the South Fork with her former husband. They had spent weekends in the Amagansett dunes before their divorce in 1999, when she moved to Amy’s Court in East Hampton. There, she was president of the homeowners association for almost 20 years.

After retiring from Pan Am, Ms. von Engelhardt was employed over the years at Victory Garden, Mecox Gardens, Hren’s, Gone Local, and the Wallace Gallery. She was interested in gardening, art, and antiques, and would often run tag sales for friends and would look after their properties. She also was an enthusiastic reader and an accomplished baker, a friend, Beth Volin, said, calling her “a force to be reckoned with.”

She was born a baroness on March 27, 1942, in Marne in northern Germany, near the North Sea. Her father died during World War II. Her remaining German relatives are her sisters, Gesche Krey of Sankt Margarethen and Isle Rohde of Wewelsfleth, both of which are near Hamburg, and several nieces and nephews. A funeral service was held at a church near her sisters’ residences.

Ursula Ahnelt-Yezil of Springs died on Jan. 2 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. She had been ill with cancer for five years and died of a stroke. She was 72.

Ms. Ahnelt-Yezil, who was born in Hameln, Germany, on Jan. 18, 1944, one of the two daughters of Wolfgang Ahnelt and the former Annie Osterwald, came to the United States after high school with a friend, and in 1966 she earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at Fordham University. In 1967 she began working at the German Information Center in Manhattan, later moved on to the German Consulate, and finally was employed by the German Mission to the United Nations until retiring in 2001. She worked for a few more years after that at a law firm.

In July 1987 she married Michael Yezil, who survives, and they began spending weekends in Springs, eventually moving there year round about three years ago. Ms. Ahnelt-Yezil enjoyed design work and gardening at their house. In addition to her husband, Ms. Ahnelt-Yezil is survived by a sister, Jutta Ahnelt of Bremen, Germany, and by her stepdaughter, Serena Rosso of Tuckerton, N.J.

Ms. Ahnelt-Yezil was cremated at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn and her widower has her ashes. When he dies, he said, his daughter plans to mingle his ashes with his wife’s and spread them at a place they both loved. Memorial donations can be sent to Amnesty International, 5 Penn Plaza, 16th Floor, New York City 10001.

Tere LoPrete, a book designer whose credits included the first edition of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” and books by Julia Child, Tom Wolfe, and James Michener, died at home in Wainscott on Dec. 27 surrounded by friends and family. She had overcome breast cancer years ago, but had a recurrence about two years ago, friends said. She was 90 years old.

Ms. LoPrete grew up in Brooklyn and began working in publishing after graduating from Grover Cleveland High School in Queens in 1944. Her first job was to file author correspondence, and she used her earnings to pay for night classes at the Art Students League. But “the only way to learn design in those days was to do it,” she told The Star in a 2006 interview. “There weren’t any classes that taught book design, only book production.” She eventually began to work on advertisements and finally book jackets. At Alfred A. Knopf, she oversaw a range of imprints from college textbooks to works of fiction. It was for Knopf that she designed the cover of “In Cold Blood,” published in 1965.

“Truman said he wanted to use a photograph on the cover — not the faces, just the eyes,” Ms. LoPrete recalled in the 2006 Star interview. The jacket included grainy black-and-white images of the eyes of Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, the men convicted of the 1959 murder that is chronicled in the true-crime novel.

Ms. LoPrete was one of the first women in the field at the time, and also was the first book designer to have her name on a front jacket along with the author. She is recognized on the website Fonts In Use, an independent archive of typography, in the “most discussed” and “staff picks” categories, and she was much praised by the writers she worked with over six decades.

“The thing I learned as a designer as I went along is that, in general, the simpler the better. Less is more,” Ms. LoPrete said in 2006. Kim Shipman, a friend, said Ms. LoPrete had always said, “ ‘If a book is designed well, you don’t notice it.’ ” Her attention to detail, to the look and feel of a book and the many elements that enhanced the reader’s experience though he or she may never have been conscious of them, such as “never ending the page on a preposition,” are talents largely lost in the digital age, Ms. Shipman said.

From Knopf, Ms. LoPrete went on to such prestigious publishing houses as Lippincott and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. She loved working for the latter because “they have more Nobel Prize winners than anybody else in literature, and they cared about the design of their books,” she told The Star. She designed the first unauthorized biography of the painter Georgia O’Keeffe at Playboy magazine’s newly formed book division, Seaview Books. 

Ms. LoPrete bought land on West Gate Road in Wainscott not long after visiting the area with another friend in publishing, and built a house there in 1993. She moved there full time after retiring in 1999. A talented artist as well as a designer, she was an illustrator for children’s books and enjoyed oil painting and teaching plein air and still-life painting until just last year.

She took up golf after retiring and played on a women’s league until the age of 88. She also volunteered at the Parrish Art Museum and had helped with the layout and design of books containing artists’ collections, as well as working in its archives.

She celebrated her 90th birthday on Aug. 14 at her favorite restaurant, the American Hotel in Sag Harbor. She is survived by two sisters, Susan Moxley of Indianopolis and Lee Meyer of Asheville, N.C., and by a niece.

A celebration of her life will be held on Jan. 29 from noon to 3 p.m. at 48 West Gate Road in Wainscott. Ms. LoPrete was buried at Most Holy Trinity Church Cemetery in East Hampton.

Contributions in her name have been suggested to the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, P.O. Box 901, Wainscott 11975.

Thomas Edmund Andres of Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs died on Sunday at home after an accidental fall. He was 56 years old.

He was born on Oct. 13, 1960, in Brooklyn, one of two sons of Edmund Andres and the former Helen Gromb­kowski. His family left Brooklyn for Montauk when Mr. Andres was 5, and he attended and graduated from the Montauk Elementary School and East Hampton High School.

Mr. Andres was passionate about baseball and cars. In 1978 he was recruited by the New York Mets to play in its Minor League division but he had to withdraw after starting training due to an elbow injury. Locally, he played ball with his children and helped out with the teams his son was on. He was also a longtime member of the Bonac Cruisers  Classic Car Club in East Hampton during a period when he owned a 1969 Mustang. He had worked most recently restoring cars at Georgica Services in East Hampton. Before that he had worked at one of the local lumberyards.

He and the former Audrey Watson, who survives, were married on Sept. 22, 1985. Their son, Joseph Andres of East Hampton, said his father enjoyed drawing in pen and pencil and had always helped him with school projects. He had also enjoyed surfing and been a lifeguard at the beach that was next to Gosman’s Dock in Montauk.

A daughter, Donna Andres of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and a brother, Henry Andres of Oakdale, also survive, as do many Watson and Andres relatives who live all over the world.

The family will welcome guests on Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A reception will follow. Memorial donations have been suggested to the Springs Fire Department, 179 Fort Pond Boulevard, East Hampton 11937.

Janet Maloney, who in the late 1970s inherited a house on Springs-Fireplace Road that had belonged to her cousin Merrill Millar Lake, died of natural causes at her Manhattan residence on Jan. 4. She was 91.

Ms. Maloney’s favorite thing to do was travel, according to her family. After she met and married her husband, William E. Maloney, in New York City in 1955, they spent about six years living in England, France, and Ireland, spending the longest chunk of time in Marbella, Spain, where, relatives said, they “became the darlings of the older . . . Europeans who made their houses in that playground of the rich.” Family lore has it that she met Mr. Maloney at a ball after pulling him out of the orchestra pit into which he had tumbled.

Before marrying, she had worked for about five years at CBS in the city, a job she found exciting and glamorous and one in which she got to meet such luminaries as Frank Sinatra and Cliff Robertson.

She was born on March 23, 1925, in Forest Hills, one of two children of Carl M. Thomas and the former Helen Young. Her brother, Robert Thomas, died before her. A nephew, Evan Thomas, lives in East Hampton.

Ms. Maloney, who graduated from the Kew-Forest School in Queens, spent happy summers with her Millar cousins, who owned Seafields on Indian Wells Highway in Amagansett, formerly the Namagansett Field Club, which was the hamlet’s first summer social club, founded in 1903, with tennis and cycling. She told her family about the “arduous trek down the road to the beach,” which seemed far away to such a young child. She remembered her older, glamorous cousins dressing up for dances at the Devon Yacht Club and also mentioned admiring the girl whose locker at Devon was next to hers, one Jacqueline Bouvier.

Bronwyn Quillen, Ms. Maloney’s daughter, said that although her mother enjoyed socializing as a young woman, she became less enthusiastic about it as she grew older. She did love gardening and also swimming at Louse Point in Springs, and after inheriting the house nearby (the Merrill Lake Sanctuary is named after her cousin), she and her husband spent weekends and summer holidays there, and, after the 1980s, more and more time. Mr. Maloney died in May 2009. Her friends and family “will remember her as radiant, kind, charming, and incredibly funny,” her daughter said.

In addition to Ms. Quillen and two nephews, Ms. Maloney is survived by a son, Gavin Young Maloney of Little Falls, N.Y., and two grandsons. Most of her friends lived in East Hampton. She was cremated; the family plans to scatter her ashes in the spring.

A graveside service was held at Oak Grove Cemetery in Amagansett on Saturday for Edna Mae Steckowski, 86, who died on Dec. 28 at her Miankoma Lane, Amagansett, home, which she and her husband built in 1950. A descendant of some of the original East Hampton settlers, Mrs. Steckowki, who spent her entire life in Amagansett, had had Alzheimer’s disease for many years.

She was born in Southampton Hospital on March 24, 1930, to Gilbert Parsons and the former Edna Bennett. She and Stanley Steckowski Jr. of Sagaponack, a Navy veteran of World War II, were married on April 18, 1948.

A homemaker, Mrs. Steckowski was particularly adept at sewing and was a longtime member of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church sewing club and its craft group, which raised many thousands of dollars for the church over the years. She loved fishing on her husband’s boat, as well as reading and gardening, and was a member the Ladies Auxiliary of the American Legion.

The couple raised three sons, all of whom survive: Gilbert Steckowski and Barry Steckowski of East Hampton, and Peter Steckowski of Huntington. Mrs. Steckowski is also survived by four grandchildren. A daughter, Gay, died in infancy.

Toward the end of her life, Mrs. Steckowski was cared for by East End Hospice, with a hospice worker on hand at the time of her death. The family has suggested that donations in her memory be made to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978.

Daniel Ryan Shields Sr., who had been a painting contractor, an East Hampton Town Parks Department employee, and an Amagansett Fire Department captain, died on Dec. 27 at Southampton Hospital of congestive heart failure and complications of the disease.  He was 79 and had been ill for some time.

With his wife, the former Joy Lyons Roesel of Sagaponack, who survives, Mr. Shields traveled across the United States and throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They were married in September 1996 and shared an appreciation for classic cars. Wearing matching jackets, they went to many local and out-of-state car shows over the years and exhibited their 1955 Crown Victoria in many parades. The car was noted for its vintage and also for being black, pink, and white, with a Betty Boop doll in the backseat.

Mr. Shields was born in Southampton on Aug. 23, 1937, the son of the former Alice Fithian and Charlie Shields. He attended East Hampton schools, and was on their football and baseball teams. He couldn’t wait for East Hampton’s Town Pond to freeze, his family said, since he played ice hockey and was a terrific figure skater.

As a member of East Hampton High School’s football team of 1952, the only undefeated, untied team in East Hampton’s history, he was recently inducted into the high school’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

After graduating from high school, he entered the Navy at age 17 and was stationed in Sanford, Fla.

In 1959, he married Linda Lee Finch of Amagansett. The couple lived in that hamlet, where Mr. Shields established his own painting company. He later took a job with the town, where he worked until retirement.

An active member of the Amagansett Fire Department for 15 years, Mr. Shields was the captain of Company 2.

When his first wife suffered a debilitating illness and became wheelchair-bound, he dedicated himself as her caregiver. “He helped everyone in need before himself,” and was known in the community for his selflessness, his family said. Linda Shields died in 1992.

In addition to his current wife, Mr. Shields is survived by a son, Daniel R. Shields II of Amagansett, and a daughter, Darlene Shields Bartoletta of Tampa, Fla., along with five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Also surviving are a sister, Patty LaCarrubba of Amgansett, three stepchildren, Michael Roesel and Ricky Roesel of Sag Harbor and Kristy Brabant of East Hampton, and seven step-grandchildren.

A wake was held on Friday at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton, followed by a service at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton, the Rev. Donald M. Hanson presiding. Burial took place on Saturday at Most Holy Trinity Cemetery in East Hampton.