Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Years ago, when Richard Manning Berkeley would tuck his two daughters into bed, they’d take turns reciting lines of the Lord’s Prayer. Every Sunday, when it was time to say the prayer at church, Berkeley would reach out and hook pinkies with his kids.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

“It felt like it was something special to our family, even though it’s this universal experience,” said Brandon Middaugh, Berkeley’s first daughter. He was good at that.

Praying is one of the many things Berkeley’s family will miss doing with the Baltimore man. Berkeley, a man of faith who prioritized his family above all else, died on Oct. 14 of a heart attack. He was 72.

He was a passionate investor, proud alumnus of the University of Virginia and an outdoorsman who loved fishing.

The youngest of three, Berkeley was something of a mischievous child, family said. At age 6 or 7, his parents gave him a toolbox for Christmas. They left for a few hours, and when they returned, the little boy had sawed off the legs of the dining room table, family recalled.

But it was his kindness and sweet demeanor that drew the attention of his eventual wife, Brandon Moore Berkeley. The pair grew up together in North Carolina — their parents were friends — and attended the same Episcopal church. Brandon Berkeley said she had a crush on him in the second grade.

The couple didn’t get together until later in life, when she was in high school and he had gone off to the University of Virginia, where he was once caught trying to climb the scaffolding of the Rotunda, a famous building that sits in the middle of campus. He was lucky to get off with a warning, Middaugh said.

After graduating from college, Berkeley served in the Air Force for two years. He was based in Rantoul, Illinois, and was surrounded by married people. He realized it was time for him as well. So, one winter evening, while Brandon Berkeley was in college, he called her up from a phone booth and said: “I’m looking at a barbed wire fence. And wouldn’t you like to get married?”

He followed up the impromptu proposal with a ring, and the couple married while he was still in the military. He was the love of her life, Brandon Berkeley said.

Afterward, he returned to the University of Virginia to get higher degrees in business and law. He then launched a long career in investment banking, a job that he was both good at and enjoyed every day — and that brought him to Baltimore, his family said. He was most recently a venture partner at Camden Partners.

“His great joy was to help little businesses find their path,” Brandon Berkeley said.

Though Berkeley was well-respected in the industry, and he often traveled for work, it never felt like his career took away from time with his family, said his second daughter, Stuart Gamper. That was partially because his job was “restorative” for him — he loved coaching and mentoring others, and work gave him energy, Gamper said.

Berkeley was quite the sportsman. He excelled at tennis and often played squash with Gamper. When Middaugh was a kid, he coached her softball and basketball teams for a little while, she said.

Berkeley also loved being outdoors, from the time he was a child. He was an Eagle Scout and a fan of hiking, camping and biking. He loved fishing, too, and would take his family to a fly-fishing camp. Every summer, his side of the family met up in the Pocono Mountains, where they would grill and spend time together outside. Berkeley considered himself something of a birdwatcher, too, and was always on the lookout for ospreys.

When Berkeley was interested in something, everyone around him knew it, Gamper said.

“He loved deeply, and he just wanted to share that with everyone,” she said. “He wanted you to love it as much as he did. … Often, we rolled our eyes, but that heart-on-your-sleeve, unapologetic enthusiasm for what he loved was really wonderful, to show up as himself and just try to share that with everyone.”

His quirks sometimes manifested as side characters. “Tour Guide Richard” was one of them, borne from Berkeley’s tendency to walk 10 paces ahead of everyone else in the airport and read up on various locations before his family traveled there. When it was time for the actual tour guide to speak, Berkeley would chime in with all of the things he’d learned already, Middaugh said.

Berkeley’s family described him as endlessly generous and deeply caring. He squeezed his children three times to mark every word of “I love you.”

He was especially proud of his four grandchildren. Berkeley would play with them, and sometimes treated them to a little guitar. He’d sing John Denver or James Taylor songs, Gamper said, and if they were especially lucky, he’d call back to his own childhood and sing “Carolina In My Mind.”

Berkeley always had a glass-half-full approach to life, his wife said, that probably came from his own experience losing his father at a young age. He was a gentleman, she said, but he was also a gentle man.

In recent years, as Berkeley fell ill, he relied on his faith and his family for comfort. He had a personal mantra he often repeated — and wrote on a Post-it note — to keep him in good spirits: “Every day is a gift.”

The Banner publishes news stories about people who have recently died in the Baltimore region. If your loved one has passed and you would like to inquire about an obituary, please contact obituary@thebaltimorebanner.com. If you are interested in placing a paid death notice, please contact groupsales@thebaltimorebanner.com or visit this website. Or sign up for our newsletter https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/newsletters/obituaries/.