Back in the early 2000s, when newspapers were in full retreat, Gene Brady was caught up in the wave of departures from The Commercial Appeal.

Brady had worked for the paper for more than four decades. After many years running the morgue — the paper’s library, where past stories were clipped and stored in thick files — he’d transitioned to doing odd jobs and handling the mail.

But times change. Newspapers shrank. The CA produced a nice farewell story for its internal publication on the end of Brady’s 42-year career.

Not long after, John Stamm, an editor at the paper, arrived at the building early, the way he often did.

And there was Brady, working away, as if nothing had changed.

“I said, ‘Gene, what are you doing?’” Stamm said. “He told me he was getting the newspapers organized to bring to the editors. When I tried to tell him it wasn’t his responsibility any longer, he said, ‘Well, this needs to be done.’”

Brady, 89, died last weekend in a single-car accident. His car hit a telephone pole on Poplar Avenue.

Brady wasn’t a celebrated reporter or editor. He didn’t collect bylines or awards. 

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“But he was an institution,” said Otis Sanford, former managing editor at The CA. “He was as much a symbol of that paper as the lighthouse (logo).”

Said Stamm: “I truly believe Gene would have kept working for free so we would have our papers. And we didn’t realize all the little things he did until he was no longer there.”

Maybe you know a Gene Brady at your place of work. But they are getting to be fewer and farther between.

Indeed, it’s not just that we don’t have as many Gene Bradys — we don’t have as many places of work.

We work in our homes or in random coffee shops. Our assistants are increasingly virtual.

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And, in the process, we miss out on the communities our workplaces used to be and the characters who made them such fun.

Brady was a character. Just ask his niece, Helen Anne DiMeglio, who has heard that phrase roughly 10,000 times since he died.

“Everyone says that,” she said. “‘He was such a character!’ And I can’t disagree.”

There was the time that Brady was asked to go pick up a car for an editor at The CA. Instead of getting a ride to fetch the car, Brady drove his car to get the car and then drove both cars back, in alternating fashion, driving each car maybe 100 yards at a time.

“But he was an institution. He was as much a symbol of that paper as the lighthouse (logo).”

Otis Sanford
Former manager editor at The Commercial Appeal

Or there was the stretch back when the newspaper ran a daily account of the temperature at the airport as well as the temperature on the top of The CA’s office building. The temperature on the top of the office building — which Brady got by looking at an actual thermometer — always seemed unusually high.

So one day an editor accompanied Brady to the roof to examine his process. Brady took out his lighter and stuck it under the thermometer so he could see everything more clearly.

Except maybe those stories aren’t true! Maybe they were just legend! Nobody knows for sure.

“I’m unsure of the veracity of most of the Brady stories,” said Louis Graham, former editor of the paper. “They have grown over the years.”

And to be clear: Brady was a smart guy, deeply thoughtful, a holder of degrees in journalism and marketing from what was then Memphis State.

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When David Waters became the religion writer, Brady would regularly stop by his office to talk about his faith. 

“He was a devoted Catholic,” Waters said. “He was a person of strong conviction. But what I appreciated even more was his willingness to be open about other ways to look at things. He was more curious than judgmental. ”

Those are the conversations we’re not having in our home offices or our coffee shops. We’re certainly not having them on Zoom.

“Everywhere he went, he had an index card and a pen in his pocket,” said DiMeglio, his niece. “In case he learned something he wanted to write down.”

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DiMeglio has been overwhelmed with calls and notes since Brady died. So has Brady’s son, Trip. Because it turns out that Brady wasn’t just a meaningful part of the newspaper community, he was a meaningful part of communities all over town.

He attended mass every day at St. Theresa the Little Flower Catholic Church. He was so reliable in his attendance that when he missed a couple of days not long ago, the church called to ask if something was wrong.

He attended Sunday evening mass at St. Louis Catholic Church — where he served as an usher.

He umpired thousands of baseball games in the city over the years and would have been umpiring again this year if his walker hadn’t slowed him down.

He pitched in old-timers leagues for decades, where he was known for a curve that broke 15 feet.

Or maybe the 15-foot curve is also legend. But his son, Trip, is the one who told me about it. Trip also wanted to make sure I wrote that he had “the best Daddy ever.” That part, you can surely believe.

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Oh, and one more story, which his colleagues witnessed with their own eyes. It seems that the paper sponsored an outing for employees to AutoZone Park. As part of the event, Brady was chosen to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. He took this duty very seriously, naturally. But once he got to the game, he realized he needed someone to warm him up. So Brady walked straight up to one of the Redbirds players and asked if he would do it.

Who was the Redbird in question?

Star pitcher Rick Ankiel.

Let the record show that Brady threw his first pitch right down the pipe.

“He wasn’t famous, but it feels like everybody knew him,” DiMeglio said. “Whole families would embrace him. So many people have been calling, I can’t keep track if they were his friends or Trip’s friends. When I asked Trip about it, he just said, ‘Well, we’re all friends.’ It’s just unbelievable, the number of friends.”

Nobody knows quite where Brady was headed Sunday afternoon when he lost control of his car. Maybe the public library. Maybe The Cupboard. He had communities in those places, too.

But when Brady’s family went to see the wreckage, they found his umpiring equipment in the back seat.  

“He just wanted to help people,” Trip said. “If someone had needed an umpire, he was ready to go.”

Visitation for Gene Brady will be held at Memorial Park Funeral Home on Sunday, Oct. 27, from 5 to 7 p.m. Services will be Monday, Oct. 28, at 1:30 p.m. at St. Theresa the Little Flower Catholic Church.