S. Edward Kearns Sr., a longtime city editor for The Catholic Review whose career spanned four archbishops and nearly half a century, died Wednesday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Oak Crest Village retirement community in Parkville. He was 93.
Known as "the Old Scout" to colleagues at the Baltimore diocesan newspaper, Mr. Kearns started working there at age 16 as a copy boy. He stayed for the duration of his working life, missing only one day of work -- in September 1960, when he had a slight heart attack and had to be hospitalized.
On that occasion, he tried to ignore his chest pains and put off the visit to the hospital until after that week's paper had gone to press, according to an article that appeared at the time in the Review, headlined "'Old Scout' Missing."
"After that, he never missed another day of work again," said his daughter Sally K. Lee of Freeland. "He was a very dedicated man."
The same reliability defined his career in the Review's small newsroom, until his retirement in 1975, colleagues said.
"He was basically the mechanic who put [the paper] all together," said John McNulty, a Review advertising account executive who worked with Mr. Kearns for seven years.
Mr. Kearns grew up in Mount Washington, where he served as an altar boy at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart. Because his family lived down the road from the church, he was often called on at the last minute to fill in for other boys.
"He was always on call, and felt that because some of the other [boys] knew that, they were very relaxed about calling in sick," said his son Samuel E. Kearns Jr. of Towson. "The sexton would run down to the house for him and he would have no choice."
Mr. Kearns married Rachel A. Ditzel in 1932 and moved with her to Riderwood, where they began a family that would number eight children, all of whom attended the school of Immaculate Conception parish.
For a growing family relying on a newspaper employee's salary, times were tough: Mr. McNulty recalls Mr. Kearns telling him how he would put cardboard in his shoes to cover their holes during the Depression, when he would walk to the office from the train stop on Centre Street. He spent much of his time at home working on the large vegetable garden that helped feed the family, his children recalled.
Sam Kearns recalls his father bringing home newspaper copy to proofread, marking the pages with a big lead pencil.
There were a few stories of which his father was particularly fond, Sam Kearns said, including one he wrote as a young reporter about Charles Lindbergh coming to Baltimore after his trans-Atlantic flight, and another he wrote about the dedication of the new St. Mary's Seminary around 1930, when he went up in an open plane to take pictures of the site.
"That really impressed Daddy: When they got lower, he could see the clergy with their purple robes, and he got to see his own home from the air," his daughter said.
Then there was the upheaval of the Vatican II reforms in the early 1960s, which Sam Kearns recalls as the only time he heard his father, a devout Catholic, voice opinions about the church. "He did not like the fact that they took down the ornate marble altar at Immaculate Conception. He was very upset about that," his son said.
After his retirement, Mr. Kearns busied himself with oil painting and refinishing the antique furniture he and his wife bought at real estate auctions. He moved in with one of his daughters after his wife died in 1989, and later moved to Oak Crest.
"He was a very simple man, but he had a rich life," said Sally Lee. "He said he learned a long time ago that he didn't need a lot of money to have a full life."
A funeral Mass was offered Saturday at Shrine of the Sacred Heart.
In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Kearns is survived by two other sons, Stephen E.H. Kearns of Parkville and Scott C. Kearns of Rock Hill, S.C.; four other daughters, Sue K. Walker of Riderwood, Sharon K. Mack of Sparks, Sheila K. Woolfolk of Parkton and Stephanie K. Bozimski of Long Neck, Del.; two sisters, Marie K. Mullin of Towson and Emma K. Ward of Bethesda; 11 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren.