They came by the hundreds to Cincinnati City Hall Thursday night to pay respects to former Mayor Theodore M. Berry — and nearly all had a story to tell about how he had touched their lives.

        There were the well-known council members, past and present, who served with the man who became Cincinnati's first black mayor 28 years ago, or who followed in his footsteps.

        And there were the less well-known, like the young nursing-home worker who came to love the man she cared for in recent years, and whose young son would come to the nursing home to play the piano for him.

Mourners lined up in city council chambers where former mayor Ted Berryıs body lay in state. (Michael E. Keating photos) | ZOOM |

        Or the gray-haired veterans of World War II and Korea, the African-American servicemen known as the Tuskegee Airmen, whose fellow airmen Mr. Berry had defended 50 years ago when they tried to integrate an all-white officers' club.

        Mr. Berry's flag-draped coffin lay for four hours in City Council chambers in front of the mayor's podium where he wielded the gavel in council meetings in the early 1970s.

        More than 700 mourners signed the guest book, but City Hall officials said many more visited who did not sign.

        His children, Theodore Jr., Faith Berry and Gail Berry West, and son-in-law Togo West, the secretary of Veterans Affairs in the Clinton administration — greeted the long line of mourners.

        Among them was Julia Ward Perdue, a retired teacher from East Walnut Hills, who had known Mr. Berry since she was a little girl and he was a lawyer for her family's real estate business.

Ted Berry, Jr. kisses his sister Gail Berry-West after he handed her a City of Cincinnati flag. | ZOOM |

        When Mr. Berry was mayor, he appointed Ms. Perdue to the Cincinnati Recreation Commission. She was the first black woman to sit on that board. Later, she chaired the commission and presided over the creation of the Serpentine Wall, the Butterfield Senior Center and other projects.

        “He gave me an opportunity to serve the city,” Ms. Perdue said. “He was the kind of man who would open doors and let others pass through.

        “We always referred to him as a "statesman,'” Ms. Perdue said. “We didn't even want to give him the name of "politician.' He was so much more than that.”

        Karen Brown was an aide at the Lodge Care Center in Loveland where Mr. Berry, in failing health, spent the last three years of his life.

        “He changed my life,” Ms. Brown said. “We would sit and talk and I would tell him about my family. He'd give advice and talk to me about his own life. he was a very special man.”

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• Ted Berry, Mr. Cincinnati   • A lifetime of firsts   • Street will bear his name   • Milestones in Berry's life

        Steve Reece, a businessman and father of Councilwoman Alicia Reece, met Mr. Berry in 1968 when Mr. Reece was head of a private social-service agency in Cincinnati seeking federal fund ing. So he went to Washington to meet with Mr. Berry, who then was an official in the Johnson administration.

        When Mr. Berry returned to Cincinnati and City Council in the early 1970s, he asked Mr. Reece to be his council aide.

        “I remember the day he was sworn in as mayor,” Mr. Reece said.

        “Everybody in the political power structure was nervous about a black mayor; and nervous about his speech, so they all went over word by word what he was going to say,” Mr. Reece said.

        “Then, at the last minute, Mr. Berry threw out the speech they all had pawed over and switched it with the one he wanted to make,” Mr. Reece said. “Mr. Berry always said what he wanted to say.”

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