Ethel Mary Rooney Hall passed away on Jan. 26, 2000. She was born on April 26, 1899 in NYC, grew up in East Norwich, and has lived in Westbury since 1930. She graduated from Oyster Bay High School in 1926 (salutatorian) and the State University at Albany in 1920. (In 1977 Mrs. Hall was given the Distinguished Alumna Award of SUNY Albany). She did graduate work at NYU, Columbia and Cambridge.

Mrs. Hall taught high school English at Rockville Centre, Sayville, Mineola (coached public speaking and debating teams), and John Adams and Andrew Jackson in NYC. She took a great interest in her students and was a positive influence on their lives. Louis Backiel, a former student of hers at Mineola High School who later became a NC judge, stated that he would never have made it to college (Colgate) without Mrs. Hall's tutoring during lunch periods. She retired from teaching in 1954.

Mrs. Hall was a founding member of The College Club that became the LI Chapter of AAUW and was an early member of the League of Women Voters (moderated debates between Congressional candidates). She was a member of the United Methodist Church in Westbury for the past 80 years and until recently was the leader of a Bible Study group and a reading and discussion group. An interview with her by the The Westbury Times on election day has been a local tradition.

In November of 1999 Ken Burns presented on public television a documentary on women's suffrage that featured Mrs. Hall as she had voted in the first general election in 1920. He named the program Not for Ourselves Alone from a college motto of Mrs. Hall's elicited in an interview for the program.

Mrs. Hall's closest relatives are a nephew, William L. Edwards of Garden City and a niece, Mary Edwards Conarro of Warren, PA.