Harriet T. Peele, 91

Harriet Talmadge Peele, a 60-year resident of Cooper Lane in East Hampton Village, died on Nov. 20 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital three days after a stroke. She was 91.

Mrs. Peele was a deacon and retired 15-year secretary of the East Hampton Presbyterian Church, where she worked during the tenure of the Rev. Frederick W. Schulz. As a descendant of a Revolutionary War veteran named Hand, she was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and was also a member of the Order of the Eastern Star.

Born at home in Sag Harbor on May 28, 1926, she was the only child of the former Edith Wade and John Talmadge. When she was growing up in Sag Harbor she was known by her middle name, Estelle. She graduated from Pierson High School in 1943 and from Rider College in New Jersey in 1945. After working for a year in Manhattan, she returned to the South Fork to begin her career as an employee of the Town of East Hampton, for which she held different jobs, including as secretary in the assessor’s office.

Willie Mae Yardley, a friend, introduced her to Richard T. Peele of East Hampton, whom she married in 1950. He died in 2000, just before what would have been their 50th anniversary. Their adopted son, Thomas Peele, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, said that his mother was known for her cookies, especially the chocolate chip and molasses ones, and that her friends would drop in frequently to “see what was coming out of the oven.” This was, Mr. Peele said, “one of the ways she stayed connected to the community.”

Mrs. Peele enjoyed going out to lunch with her friends in East Hampton and Sag Harbor and she ate frequently at the East Hampton Senior Citizens Center on Springs-Fireplace Road. She had survived bone cancer in the late 1980s and had trouble walking, but, according to her son, “she never slowed down.” She liked to attend presentations about East End history and had contributed her memories of living through the Hurricane of 1938.

She “was a child of the Great Depression,” Mr. Peele said. “Thrifty, tough, and generous with whatever she had. She had a strong work ethic.”

In addition to her son, she is survived by twin granddaughters, all of Oakland, Calif.

Her funeral was held on Nov. 29 at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church, with both the Rev. Scot McCachren and Reverend Schulz officiating. Mrs. Peele was cremated and her ashes were scattered in the church’s memorial garden, as her husband’s had been. The family has suggested memorial donations to an organization she was in the process of joining when she died, the Sag Harbor Historical Society, P.O. Box 1079, Sag Harbor 11963.