This interview originally appeared in the SPRING 2016 issue of The District.

We are pleased to circle back with our Morristown High School (MHS) esteemed alumni and catch up. We recently caught up with two brothers who both have had wonderful careers - Donald Pollock, MHS ’47 and Stewart Pollock, MHS ’50. This is not surprising as their respective classmates both selected them “Most Likely To Succeed” for the MHS Yearbook, the Cobbonian.

MEF: “Gentleman, what an honor to speak with you both… tell us about your journey since high school?”

DP: “After graduating Morristown High School in 1947, I attended Hamilton College and then went on to Harvard Medical School. I joined Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, New York for my medical residency program. After that, I spent seven years in the military as an army doctor. In the early 60’s my family and I were stationed at Kagnew Station in Ethiopia. Ethiopia was a neat experience because my wife and I got to meet Queen Elizabeth andI was also given a private audience with Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia. When we returned to the United States, I spent two years at Ft. Devens inMassachusetts before settling in Cooperstown and beginning a career at Bassett Hospital that would last over thirty years mainly as an internist. Bassett Hospital, a small teaching hospital in a rural area, needed to broaden their services which meant employment of physician “extenders” - i.e. nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants. I was glad to be part of this expansion of services. Another special part of my career in Cooperstown involved the Baseball Hall of Fame; I was asked to attend the annual induction ceremonies as a physician.  I was privileged to sit in the VIP section and meet many of baseball’s greats and their families.”

SP: “I, too, attended Hamilton College after graduating Morristown High School. I then attended NYU Law School under a scholarship founded by Arthur T. Vanderbilt when he was the Dean of the Law School. He later became Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. After I graduated law school, I joined his former law firm. From 1958 to 1960, I served as an Assistant United States Attorney. I returned to Morristown in 1960 and joined Schenck Price Smith & King. I tried a case before the Assignment Judge Brendan Byrne. One day, his secretary called and said he would render the opinion that morning. When I arrived at the courthouse, there were lots of reporters, not because of the case, but because Judge Byrne was resigning to run for Governor. The rest is history. Governor Byrne invited me to join his administration, first as a Commissioner on the Board of Public Utilities and then as his Counsel. He then appointed me to the Supreme Court, where I served for two decades. As an attorney, I had served as president the Morris County Bar Association and trustee of the New Jersey Bar Association. As a Justice, I served as chairman of the appellate judges conference in the American Bar Association. Also, while on the Court, I earned a masters degree in judicial process from the University of Virginia. When I retired from the Court, I joined Riker Danzig which, like Schenck Price, views the practice of law as a private profession in the service of the public. In 2000, I chaired the Court’s committee on the revision of the rules of professional conduct, and I am honored to have an environmental inn of court named after me. Before entering public service, I served as president of the Occupational Training Center for the Handicapped (now Employment Horizons); more recently, I’ve been involved with the Morris County Office of Hispanic Affairs.”

MEF: “What are you up to today?”

DP: “After retiring, I have enjoyed traveling, volunteering at church, as well as spending time with my grandchildren.”

SP: “Today I remain Of Counsel with Riker Danzig. I spend more than half of the year in Florida and the rest of the time in the greater Morristown area and the Finger Lakes.”

MEF: “What inspired you to become a lawyer/doctor?”

DP: “Seemed like a good idea… (He laughs) We had a general physician in Mendham when I was growing up and I was impressed with all the thingsthat he was able to do and that inspired me.”

SP: “I knew I wasn’t going to be a doctor. The smell of formaldehyde in Mr. Fogel’s biology class turned me off. As I approached the end of my senior year of college, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. The College Dean suggested I apply to NYU for a scholarship, which I was fortunate to receive. Over the years I’ve met some terrific lawyers and judges, who made me enthusiastic about the law.”

MEF: “What are you most proud of?”

DP: “The fact that I got interested in the medical field and was able to have a significant impact on the physician assistant program and as a leader for community medicine.” SP adds, “You were ahead of the curve on that stuff, Don.”

SP: “I am more grateful than proud. Professionally, serving as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court was the high point of my legal life. Also, during that time, Hamilton College awarded me an honorary degree for my work on the Court. I am most grateful for my sixty years with my wife, Penny, and our four children. My life has been centered on the law and my family. I’m alucky guy.”

MEF: “What can you share about your perspective of Morristown, our community and our schools?”

DP: “I have memories of entering a much bigger school than I had attended at Brookside and that is where I met some of my favorite people. My homeroom teacher was Ms. Rhoda Lippincott, a wonderful person whoinfluenced me quite a bit. The Cowan Brothers, who were teachers, were also outstanding in terms of literature and things of that nature. Dr. Perry (former MHS Principal) influenced both Stew and I to work as counselors atKamp (we didn’t do the spelling (again a laugh)) Killkare in St. Albans, Vermont in the summers.”

SP: “In those days, Morristown was a receiving district for a lot of towns: Mendham Borough, Mendham Township, Harding Township, Morris Plains, Morris Township, Hanover Township and East Hanover Township, all feeding into Morristown High. For the first eight grades, Don and I attended a four- room school in Brookside, with one teacher in each room, teaching everything to both grades. To go from there to MHS was a big jump. (Don chuckles).”

MEF: “ What are your favorite memories of Morristown High School? What shared memories do you have?”

SP: “What impressed me the most was the diversity in the student body. Don and I met a lot of folks whom we would not have met if we had not gone toMHS. That experience cast the seeds of something that blossomed on the Court, my belief in the inherent dignity of every person. It all started at Morristown High. I met folks from different racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. What a privilege! I also want to pick up on something Don said about the Cowan brothers. They were wonderful teachers. T.M. Cowan was especially kind to me. When I entered MHS, I was afraid of public speaking, which T.M. Cowan coached. I also joined the Debate Club. At first I didn’tunderstand what was going on. The first debate I ever attended was about euthanasia, of which I had never heard. I thought it was about “Youth in Asia,” and couldn’t understand while all the young people were dying. I hope I thanked Mr. Cowan adequately. He

MEF: “What of your success would you attribute to your experiences at the high school?”

DP: (who was MHS Valedictorian 1947): “My experience at Morristown High helped me get a scholarship to Hamilton college and that was a plus. I feltvery prepared academically.”

SP: “The diversity.”

MEF: “What advice would you give a MHS student?”

DP: “Make the most of your four years there. They go by so quickly.”

SP: “I would be more interested in what advice they could give me. Kids today are so much more sophisticated than I was, or maybe am. Here are a couple of thoughts. Life is full of risks and decisions. Just make the best decision you can, and move on. The education you receive at MHS is good enough for you to compete with anyone, including students who go to the best private schools. Make the most of the education at MHS and do yourbest.”

MEF: “If you had known then what you know now, would you have done anything differently in high school? If so, what?”

SP: “Teenage years are fraught with change, uncertainty, and stress. I think I would not have been as concerned about what the future held. I would have confronted issues as they arose, made the best decisions I could, and moved on.”

MEF: “How do you stay connected to Morristown and our schools?”

DP: “I stay in touch through my former classmates and

SP: “My daughter Wendy is the librarian and media specialist at Normandy Park School, so I keep in touch through her. Last fall, I had lunch with a group of 1950 classmates: Dan Myers, Joe and Audrey Dempsey, Snooky Vigilante, and Al Garcia.

We pressed Don and Stew for a funny memory from high school that they would be willing to share figuring these two fun-loving highly successful men must have some good stories from their earlier years that our readers would enjoy… there was some inkling of a story about Don carving his initials on a tree and then they both laughed and that was all we learned… But they recounted fond memories citing how much Morristown has changed over the years and how it was a sleepy county seat back then. They reminisced about Thode’s Ice Cream Parlor on the Green, a popular high school hangout where everyone went and their favorite sundae, the Persian Fancy, a treat where everything in the ice cream shoppe was dumped into one delicious bowl. It’s kind of how we felt after our interview with the Pollock brothers… like everything good with the world was together in one dish of a conversation.