Rooney_Panel_FNL_low Madeline Rooney She Loved the Town and the Town Loved Her On being named 1977 Cobourg Citizen of the Year I never dreamed of anything like this ...anything I've ever done for the town over the years, I've done because I love it and the people in it ...it's better than any Emmy and I love it! Cobourg Star September 27, 1978 Not every child loves school, but Madeline Rooney certainly did. As a youngster, still not old enough to attend, she would escape from her home on Perry Street and find her way to the Corktown School located nearby at the corner of Queen and Green Sts. Corktown was named for the Irish settlers from County Cork who settled there. Maybe it was her sense of history that drew Madeline, for the old school building certainly had that. It was originally known as the Anglican Church School or Bethune's Theological School, but when that institution amalgamated with Trinity College in Toronto in the early 1850s, the building became the school house for Cobourg's Education Section #4. Mary Haskell of Chicago purchased it in 1904 and converted it into a private residence. Eventually the large Tutor style home was owned by lawyer John Funnell with his large family. Madeline never lost her fascination with the building! Years later, a member of the Funnell family recalls her coming up the street, towel in hand and wearing bathing cap with a flower on it, prepared for a dip in the Funnell's backyard pool on a hot summer's day. It was a great time to grow up in Cobourg. Madeline remembered the grand old days of the Cobourg Horse Show in Donegan Park and the thousands of people arriving on the ferry from Rochester N.Y. She liked to recall climbing on the icebergs that formed on the shoreline and attending dances at the pavilion in Victoria Park. In 1911, she was sure the world was coming to an end when Haley's Comet cut through the sky! Little did she realize she'd be lucky enough to see it once more in 1986! After she finished High School, Madeline was hired at the Law Firm of W.F. Kerr. She stayed with the firm through two successive owners, Archie Cochrane and Harry Dayman, and become the first woman Justice of the Peace in the old United Counties of Northumberland and Durham. Only after spending 50 years in the legal profession did she retire at age 70. Haskell House Diocesan Theological Institute Madeline with her brother Jack Courtesy of the Northumberland County Archives