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Wednesday, July 23, 2003

By Shelly Anderson, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

"Family" had a lot of definitions for Marie Ellen Rooney McGinley. There was her immediate family, her large extended family and the Steelers family.

"Sports has been a big part of our life, and we always go to the Steelers games and sit together," Mrs. McGinley's daughter, Mary McGinley Elash, said yesterday. "She knew what was going on in the games, but mostly she liked to see her children all together at the games. That was what it was all about for her."

Mrs. McGinley, sister of late Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr., died Monday at UPMC Presbyterian of complications from a fall. She was 84.

When they weren't together at Steelers games, the extended family spent summers at cottages near Ligonier or in Florida in the winter or at training camp. The group included Mrs. McGinley and her family, Art Rooney Sr. and his family, and their sister, Margaret Laughlin, and her family. Laughlin is still living.

"It was very family-oriented," Elash said. "We were raised together, so you almost were one family."

Everyone in the extended family has remained in Pittsburgh, although the McGinleys moved to Point Breeze at a time when the rest of the family lived on the North Side.

"Our world was a magical place," said one of Mrs. McGinley's five sons, Jack. "I often think my mother made that happen for us.

"We'd leave for Ligonier in June and stay in cottages that in memory were million-dollar houses but in reality had showers out back and they'd throw you a bar of soap. The thing that made that possible was my mother being willing to leave a comfortable home and go to Ligonier and wash clothes and cook food for six children."

Sometimes, Jack said, there would be fun outings.

"She'd load us all into cars to go into Ligonier to the movies. We'd have 15 kids in a car, hanging off the fenders and everything."

One of Mrs. McGinley's nephews, Art Rooney Jr., knew there was a more serious reason for going to Ligonier. The trips got the children away from Pittsburgh's dirty air.

Rooney Jr. remembered Mrs. McGinley as someone with a sly sense of humor.

"I had a pair of high-top shoes you had to lace up," he said. "She looked at me and said, 'My gosh, Pop wore those shoes when he was an old man and I remember because I had to tie them up for him.'

"She and her sister have that salt-of-the-earth quality and that Rooney humor. This really is a loss for the family. The 'real' Rooneys are down to one now."

Jack McGinley said his mother's sense of humor helped make her great at rearing children.

"She was a little bit reserved, but she could really zing you," he said. "We could screw up royally and she would get over it in a day or two."

Elash said the family kept a vigil for her mother while she was hospitalized.

"This lasted almost a month, and every day and every night we never left her bedside," she said. "My dad held her hand the whole time."

Mrs. McGinley was working for the local boxing commission when she met her future husband before World War II. John McGinley was a boxing promoter, and his father, Barney, was a partner with Art Rooney Sr. in the world of boxing and with the Steelers. Boxing was bigger than the Steelers then.

John McGinley is a vice president of the Steelers.

"They grew up in a golden era of sports," Jack McGinley said of his parents.

Besides their connections through family and the Steelers, the McGinleys were close with many local celebrities. For example, John and Mrs. McGinley were the godparents of late KDKA anchorwoman Patty Burns.

Mrs. McGinley is also survived by sons Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard L., Thomas J., D. Michael and James S. McGinley; 18 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Friends will be received from 2 to 4 and 7 and 9 p.m. today and tomorrow in John A. Freyvogel Sons Funeral Home, 4900 Centre Ave., Oakland. A Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Friday in St. Bede Church, Point Breeze.