Rita E. Rooney, 71, of Chicago, who spent 40 years playing organ for area churches, died of cancer Thursday, Jan. 16, in her son John’s home in Park Ridge. She began playing piano when she was 2 and was able to play a full mass by the time she was 12, said her son. “She played weddings, funerals, masses and parish social events” for no or little pay, he said. Mrs. Rooney was born in Powassan, Ontario. When she was 16, she met her future husband, John Rooney, while visiting a cousin in Chicago. After about a dozen years of correspondence, they married in 1962. A year later, Mrs. Rooney, a homemaker, began playing organ at St. Gertrude Catholic Church in Franklin Park. In 1972 she started playing organ at Our Lady, Mother of the Church parish on Chicago’s Northwest Side. In the early ’90s she reduced her schedule but still played at Our Lady, Mother of the Church and Divine Savior Catholic Church in Norridge. “I remember on Christmas Eve 2001, despite the fact that she was not feeling well, she played mass. She was under the weather, but she wanted the opportunity to play and give back to the church and share what she always deemed to be a gift from God,” said her son. She is also survived by another son, James; a daughter Mary Anne; a sister, Agnes Both; and five grandchildren. Visitation begins at 9 a.m. Saturday in Cumberland Chapels, 8300 W. Lawrence Ave., Norridge. A mass follows at 10 a.m. in Our Lady, Mother of the Church, 8747 W. Lawrence Ave.
