John Tingle Coady Sr., a longtime Baltimore-area attorney who went by the nickname "Black Jack," died April 29 of complications from emphysema at Memorial Hospital in Easton. He was 85.
The Baltimore native was the third generation of his family to pass the Maryland bar. He worked close to 50 years for the firm founded in 1894 by his grandfather, who went on to represent East Baltimore in Congress from 1913 to 1921.
Mr. Coady's specialty at Coady & Farley was real estate law, and relatives said he was the rare breed of attorney who loved making house calls on clients.
"He was a very personable guy, very sociable," said his daughter, Paula C. Petry of St. Michaels. "To him, his clients weren't just clients; they were friends."
He was also a great lover of pranks. While at the Johns Hopkins University, he and his fraternity brothers at Beta Theta Pi absconded with the University of Maryland's bronze terrapin statue, his daughter said. They got caught while bringing it back, she added.
"The Maryland guys took them into a locker room and shaved all their heads," she said.
Years later, he visited the fraternity house to discover that the new crop of brothers had "borrowed" the Navy mascot, a live goat. He drove it to his sister's house in Baltimore County for the night, a memory nephew David Beaudouin will never forget.
"No harm was done," he said. "The goat was returned."
Mr. Coady dubbed himself Black Jack after taking a corner too fast in a Model A Ford, said a longtime friend, James Hodges Ridgely of Ruxton. The car overturned, and he flew out. He walked away mostly uninjured but with face blackened from the macadam, and decades later he still had a bluish circle on one cheekbone as a memento.
"It really didn't slow him down," Ms. Petry said of the accident early in his adulthood. "He loved life, and he lived it to the fullest."
Mr. Beaudouin remembers Mr. Coady as "very ebullient" and just a touch nutty in a charming way. He used beatnik slang. He called everyone "cap'n." And when he showed up at parties, he would let out a tremendous bark to let everyone know he was there — which Mr. Beaudouin always saw as his uncle's way of expressing his "joy of being alive."
As a teenager, Mr. Coady was so eager to do his part in World War II that he left City College at 17 — without finishing his senior year — in order to enlist in the Navy. He served from 1943 to 1946, primarily in the Pacific, and finished his tour of duty as a signalman second class.
He returned home to attend Hopkins for two years, transferring to the University of Baltimore to earn his law degree by night while working as a title abstractor during the day. He graduated in 1952, the year after he married Mary Ellen Andrews of Pikesville.
Mr. Coady, who moved the Coady & Farley law firm from Baltimore to Towson in the early 1970s, led an effort to get the zoning changed immediately west of the then-new Towson courthouse. The rezoning allowed homes there to be used as offices but not torn down and replaced with commercial buildings. He wanted the residential feel of the area to remain, his daughter said.
He spent many summers on the Eastern Shore and moved there in the 1980s, drawn by a love of hunting and fishing. As a boy, he once caught a fish that had a three-pound duck in its stomach, The Baltimore Sun reported at the time. As an adult, he had many opportunities to fish and hunt on his farm on the edge of St. Michaels, with its 5-acre pond and ample wildlife.
Mr. Coady opened a Talbot County office for Coady & Farley before retiring after more than 47 years with the firm.
A celebration of his life is planned for 3 p.m. June 4 at the family farm.
In addition to his daughter, Mr. Coady is survived by his wife; a son, John T. Coady Jr. of Easton; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Baltimore Sun researcher Paul McCardell contributed to this article.