Baltimore Sun; Baltimore MD; 2000-6-6

LAKE, Moses O.
On June 2, 2000, MOSES OLIVER LAKE, retired Chief Investigator for the
Maryland State Insurance Division, beloved husband of Alelia Lake. He
is also survived by four loving daughters, Mabel Lake Murray, Jannette
Lake Dates, Iantha Lake Tucker, Cheryl Lake Weatherford; two stepsons,
Alonzo and Thaddeus Price; 12 grandchildren, two great- grandchildren,
and many other relatives and friends.

Family and friends may call at the JOSEPH L. RUSS FUNERAL HOME, 2222-2226
W. North Avenue, Tuesday, 2 to 8 p.m. Wake at Falls Road African Methodist
Episcopal Church, 2145 Pine Avenue, south of intersection Windsor Mill
and Rolling Road, Wednesday, 7 to 7:30 p.m.  Funeral to follow.


Baltimore Sun; Baltimore MD; 2000-6-7

Moses Oliver Albin Lake, 82, insurance investigator

Moses Oliver Albin Lake, retired chief investigator for the state
Insurance Division who also had a long career as a salesman, died Friday
of a heart attack at his Forest Park home. He was 82.  After many years
in sales, he joined the state agency and retired in 1985.  Born in
Charleston, W.Va., he lived for a while in Upperville, Va., before
moving as a child to Baltimore, where he lived on Gilmor Street. He was
a graduate of Booker T. Washington Junior High School and Frederick
Douglass High School.  As a youth, he found ways to supplement the
family income. When he was 10, he shined shoes at a Druid Hill Avenue
barbershop. During the summer, he would gather chunks of ice that fell
from freight cars at a railroad yard and sell them to neighbors who did
not have refrigerators.  As an older teen, he learned the dry-cleaning
and tailoring trade at the old Premier and Elite cleaners, both in
Northwest Baltimore.  After serving in the Army during World War II,
he used the GI Bill to open a snack shop in downtown Baltimore with
partners Phil Taylor and Theodore Stewart. In its back room, he taught
dry cleaning and tailoring.  Mr. Lake also rang doorbells in West and
Northwest Baltimore, selling brushes and mops for the Fuller Products Co.
Family and friends recalled him as a natural salesman, attired in a dress
shirt and tie, who won customers with his breezy and confident manner.
"He could sell anything to anyone. He could sell ice to people who live
in Alaska," said his daughter, Mabel Lake Murray of Randallstown.  In the
early 1950s, Mr. Lake joined the old Key Wine and Liquor Co., in the 1800
block of Worcester St. as a salesman.  As part of the promotion for the
Key line, he founded a weekly Sunday musical variety show, In By Five,
at the Famous Ballroom, today the site of the Charles Theatre at Charles
and Lafayette streets. If patrons arrived by five in the afternoon,
they could see the entire show.  In the 1960s, Mr. Lake went into the
insurance business as a salesman for Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. He
then joined National Life and Accident, initially as a collector and
later as manager of nine district offices in the Middle Atlantic region.
He retired in 1985 as chief investigator of the state Insurance Division,
now the Maryland Insurance Administration, after many years of service.
In 1934, he married IanthaAlexander. They divorced. In 1958, he married
Alelia Baker, a retired federal worker, who survives him.  Funeral
services will be held at 7 p.m. today at Fallsroad AME Church, 2145 Pine
Ave., Randallstown.  In addition to Mabel Lake Murray, he is survived by
three other daughters, Jannette Lake Dates of Mount Washington, Iantha
Lake Tucker of Catonsville and Cheryl Lake Weatherford of Catonsville; two
stepsons, Alonzo Price of Baltimore and Thaddeus Price Sr. of Woodlawn;
13 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.