Bryan R. Moorhouse, the co-owner and editor of a South Baltimore weekly newspaper that carried his outspoken political column, died June 14 of a heart attack. He was 78.
Family members said he was preparing to leave home for a grandson's wedding when he was stricken. He lived for many years on Wilkens Avenue in Southwest Baltimore and recently had moved to Hagerstown to live with a son.
A former Yellow Cab Co. garage superintendent, insurance salesman and employment counselor, he began working in the 1960s for The Enterprise, a weekly distributed Thursdays, which he sold nearly two years ago. It circulated throughout South Baltimore, Lakeland, Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, Pigtown, Locust Point and Southwest Baltimore, and now is part of the Baltimore Guide chain of papers.
"He did it all. He was a classic weekly newspaper editor - advertising, circulation, editorial and sweep the floor," said Richard Sandza, publisher and owner of The Guide, who bought the paper from Mr. Moorhouse and his partner, Charles Avara. "He wrote an acerbic column, and he took no prisoners."
"His paper was so popular that people would swipe it off the front steps," said former City Council member Joseph J. DiBlasi, who lives in Violetville.
His column, which appeared in the free tabloid's upper left column on page two, was called, "Tell It to Me Straight," a line that family members said would appear on his tombstone at Lake View Memorial Park in Sykesville.
He always ended it with the phrase, "Ain't that right lil' Murph?" - a phrase that remains a mystery to his family.
Mr. DiBlasi said that Mr. Moorhouse often challenged authority in his columns. "He was a bulldog. He was the voice of the community, too, and in many ways its conscience, too," he said. "The Enterprise office was like a poolroom. People would walk in and ask, 'Can you help us out?'"
Mr. Moorhouse was a frequent critic of high taxes, and the policies of two senators, Barbara A. Mikulski and Hilary Rodham Clinton.
He also could blast local politicians:
"For eons Southside democrats have been giving us council and legislative reps that were functionally illiterate or just plain incompetent," he wrote in a column Oct. 23, 1986.
Born in Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire, England, he was a graduate of the Mosely School in the British city of Birmingham. He moved to the United States in 1937 and came to Baltimore in 1954. He became active in Southwest Baltimore community affairs soon after.
Mr. Moorhouse was a former president of the Lakeland Neighborhood Corp., and the Lakeland Democratic Club, the South Baltimore Kiwanis and the Westport Elementary School PTA. He also managed Little League and football teams in Baltimore Highlands.
During World War II, he served in the Army Air Forces and was a radio operator and side gunner on 35 B-17 flights over Germany. He survived two crash landings and received two Purple Hearts.
His wife of 51 years, the former Catherine Strang, died in 1999.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at McCully-Polyniak Funeral Home, 130 E. Fort Ave.
He is survived by two sons, Scott H. Moorhouse of Pomfret and Bryan G. Moorhouse of Hagerstown; and six grandchildren.