I was so sorry to hear of Leo's passing.  We were News-Sentinel colleagues for 20 years and, while we didn't talk at length, Leo eagerly gave me newsy updates for my restaurant columns.  I always appreciated his understated humor, conservative viewpoints and  insightful editorials. His gruff exterior made him the newsroom's pet curmudgeon, but he had a kind heart.  Sending my sincere condolences to his family and friends.

This just breaks my heart to hear! Leo was such a sweetheart, smart, witty  and always had a smile! Will miss you! Prayers for the family

I'm sorry to hear of Leo's passing. I worked at Fort Wayne Newspapers when he was in news room. He was a great person. RIP Leo.


Leo's house got quiet.  The kind of quiet that you find in an abandoned house.  It didn't feel right.  So I kept watching for his little car to appear on the meager gravel parking pad he had for it.   To me as my neighbor of whom I rarely saw poking his nose out of his door, Leo was a mouse.
As one quiet week followed into another I started cyber stalking to see what I could find out. What I found was startling.  I knew Leo was an editorial writer and what I had read in the past of his editorials seemed to me to be rather blandly PC.  But, I cannot claim to have read all of his editorials, only a few of them up until a few days ago.  His writings started popping up in the feed to my inquiries about him. When it came to paper and pen, Leo was the mouse that roared.  Then yesterday family showed up to his house with keys.  I just had to ask in hopes his was a temporary absence.  It wasn't.  

I read where Leo was described as cantankerous.  Say what...?  Not this Leo.  This Leo was kind and quiet and on occasion adventurous like the time he tried out the new trampoline in our back yard with hilarious results. Another time he expressed his lament about being forgotten on memorial day. The mouse had fought in a war. He was a Viet Nam veteran.  I hope I had sufficiently apologized for all of us and reassured him his service had not been forgotten.  But above all, that he was not alone in that war for those of us who were of that age.  

As for the house next door, now I keep getting flashes of it as an imploding vacuum.  The quiet extraordinary presence that gave it substance will be missed.


American Lung Association

A Celebration of Leo's Life

Preferred Memorial

D.O. McComb & Sons Funeral Homes - Pine Valley

Leonard Morris

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Leonard "Leo" Morris

September 6, 1947 – July 6, 2023

D.O. McComb & Sons Funeral Homes - Pine Valley

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