Reggie Rooney, Adventurer

Mary Ellen Thiele Rooney, a writer and photographer with a great sense of adventure who was born in Bridgehampton — and was for many years one of the East End’s inspiring personalities — died at home in Hudson Heights, N.Y., on Feb. 5 of cancer. An indomitable spirit, known to friends as Reggie, she was 83.

Ms. Rooney’s writing was published widely, in The New York Times, Newsday, and the United Nations Society of Writers’ magazine, Reflections, among others. Her “Windows on Wise Women” photography series was exhibited in Boston.

Her exploits ranged from driving a potato truck on a Bridgehampton farm to teaching sailing to diving with the Cousteau Society in French Polynesia to becoming a licensed falconer when she was 70.

Mary Ellen Thiele was born on Oct. 30, 1934, in Bridgehampton to Charles Thiele and the former Ellen Maran. She graduated from St. Lawrence University, having also studied at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, then lived in New York City, where she worked in publishing. Later, Ms. Rooney lived in Quebec City with her husband, Dr. Wallace C. Rooney Jr., from whom she later was divorced.

Her eagerness to see the world began early, her family said, when she saw a picture of Scotland in a book. While working in Southampton as a maid for the heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, the former Duchess of Marlborough, she saved enough money to travel to England on a steamship.

Among her life’s milestones were teaching English in Kyrgystan and the Czech Republic, and crewing on a boat during Operation Sail in 1976 despite two broken ribs. She had a deep love of birds and rocks and an interest in reiki and acupuncture. She studied spiritual healing, religion, and alternative therapies, from which she took what she needed and left the rest, her family said. Helping people with alcoholism, drawing on her own experience and sense of hope, was important to her, as well.

Ms. Rooney reflected in an article for Newsday on the hard work of her potato-farming days and her struggles as a writer: “A friend who studies Zen Buddhism contends that the concentration on a single spot during the long hours of driving the truck acted as a meditation during which the inner consciousness was revealed to me,” she wrote. “Or perhaps it was the sheer physical exhaustion of the farm work that ground me down to the nub of myself, where I realized that if I could drive a truck I could certainly handle the fearsome typewriter.”

Ms. Rooney is survived by her children, Peter Rooney of New Jersey and Lucas Rooney of New York City, and three grandchildren. A son, Colin Rooney, died before her.

A service for her was held at the Brockett Funeral Home in Southampton on Sunday. Burial was in the Sacred Hearts Cemetery in Southampton. A memorial gathering in New York City will be announced.

Memorial contributions have been suggested to St. George’s Choral Society, P.O. Box 3932, New York, N.Y. 10163.