Mort M. Horowitz

Mort Horowitz Obituary

1920 - 2013

Mort passed away peacefully on October 7, 2013 after a brief illness. Born in New York City in 1920, he was a beloved father to Susan and Marc and an adoring grandfather to Christopher, Lyndsey and Julianne.

A successful attorney in lower Manhattan until his retirement at age 86, Mort's true passion was the written word. He was a widely published fiction writer, placing short stories in many of the most respected commercial and literary magazines of his day.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the armed forces, where he served as a Coast Guardsman on a fireboat in the Sea of Japan and as a correspondent for the U.S. military publication, Stars and Stripes.

Mort's wit, intelligence, kindness and zest for life will be forever remembered by his family, friends and colleagues.

A memorial service will be held on Sunday, October 13 at 11:00am at Riverside Memorial Chapel, New York, NY. All are welcome.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by New York Times from Oct. 10 to Oct. 11, 2013.

Memories and Condolences
for Mort Horowitz

6 Entries

Devon McNamara

January 24, 2021

I would like to add that the wording of the Mort's story at the climactic moment, when the main character is holding, in his pocket, a carved wooden figure of his beloved dog, and understanding at the same
time that he has been betrayed by his own brother yet still holding to this figure of unconditional love, has stayed with me since I first read
it in manuscript in New Rochelle in my parents' apartment and I would love to read it again. I'm grateful to have been able to read Marc's beautiful account of Mort -- yes, oh yes, his wit -- and of Barbara, whom I also remember warmly the few times I was at my parents' home when they visited. Somewhere among my father's papers there must be some letters from Mort and I look forward in a busy life as a teacher and a writer) to finding them and I hope sending them to his family. "Daughter of Friend" is my true designation for this site, of course, and I don't know if what I have written here will reach the family but I hope that is possible.

Devon McNamara

January 23, 2021

I remember Mort Horowitz as one of my father's closest friends. My father, Ed McNamara, revered his work, his company, his presence in their writers' group which began in the city and sometimes met in New Rochelle where my parents rented a top floor apartment in an old house near the water. One day my mother was crying in our kitchen and when I asked why she said she had just finished a short story by Mort, called "The Image of Tirso" but I think the published title was different, maybe something about first betrayal or something. It was about loss and love and growing up. This must have been in the early 50's. I remember both of his children when they were quite small as the family visited us in another rented place, a cottage on a cove in Old Greenwich. He was a talented, warm, and loving man.

Carole & Chris Arcoleo & Family

November 9, 2013

What a loving tribute to your father Marc. You are fortunate to have such loving memories of him that will forever keep him close to you in spirit.

Gary Mele

October 16, 2013

I'm so sorry for your loss Marc. I know what it feels like to loose a hero.

Marc Horowitz

October 15, 2013

Mort's Eulogy

As presented by his son, Marc on October 13, 2013

Hi everybody.

A couple of years ago, my father and I were in my car heading south on the New Jersey Turnpike. It was a beautiful day around this time of year. He was still vibrant and robust… but he looked every day of his 91 years.

He reached up, flipped down the visor, looked at himself in the vanity mirror as the sun streamed in on his face and said…

“I didn't know Robert Redford was in the car.”

That was my father.

The quickness, the wit, the timing. The humility.

On behalf of our family, thanks for being here to remember my dad. It means a lot.

When you have 10 minutes to try to capture at least a kernel of the essence of a life, by definition you have to leave out a lot.

And the more full and interesting the life, the more you don't have time to say.

So when speaking about my father today, there's a lot I won't be able to get to.

But I think that in and of itself is a beautiful testament to the richness of his life and the many people he touched.

A lot of you know that my dad published many short stories in some of the most respected magazines of his day. The Atlantic Monthly, Colliers, Vogue, The Saturday Evening Post, etc. We have a few of them up on the boards over here.

He also wrote for plenty of less prestigious publications. And when he did he often used pen names.

He published True Detective stories under the powerful and capable nom de plume, Jack Hastings.

And he wrote romance fiction as the lovely and talented Myra Hastings-Thayer. I always loved that name.

One day, Mort/Myra received a rejection letter from an editor at one of the romance magazines, the name of which has long been relegated to the dustbin of history.

In that letter, the editor, thinking she was writing to Myra, said, quote “Your stories don't pick me up and swing me along.”

My father immediately went out and shipped her a trapeze.

I have no idea where he got it, but he bought it, boxed it up, addressed it and sent it.

That story and a few others are recounted in a profile piece the Saturday Evening Post did on my dad when he published his first of several stories with them.

The piece also talks about how my dad used to write in longhand,
standing up in his parent's kitchen.

Why was he writing in Sophie and Max Horowitz's kitchen?

Because he liked to write with the water running.

Sophie, Max and Mort lived on the second floor and he'd use the kitchen sink like some kind of old school white noise generator to drown out the traffic and the din of the street below.

Now at that time The Saturday Evening Post was on millions of coffee tables in 1950's Norman Rockwell America.

And I always got a kick out of the idea of a white-picket-fence family in Nebraska reading about Mort Horowitz from Magaw Place in Washington Heights sending trapezes to romance editors from Myra Hastings-Thayer and pacing around the kitchen with the water running.

The title of that piece in the Post is “The Singular Mister Horowitz.” And that's a perfect description of my dad… he was definitely Singular.

For example, most of you probably don't know that my father could say anything backwards. No pauses. Instantly, flawlessly backwards. A single word, a phrase, an entire sentence. When Susan and I were kids, we thought it was a trick.

It wasn't

You'd say “Mickey Mouse.”

With zero hesitation, he'd say SOWM-EEK-IM.

You'd say, “The rain in Spain,” he'd say NAPES NEE NARE ETH.
It sounded like Klingon – a completely alien language, but you'd check it phonetically -- you'd write it out -- and it was always perfect. Everytime. It was incredible.

His brain just had this amazing architecture, this affinity for the rhythm of words.

And that of course, is why he wrote so well.

OK, Some brief biographical notes

Mort was born and raised in Upper Manhattan. He attended NYU as an undergraduate and as a law student. He was admitted to the New York bar in I believe, 1948.

He skipped two grades in middle school and high school and had already started law school when World War II broke out.

My father was 22 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

He enlisted immediately and found himself in Southern Virginia for basic training. That's where he first encountered a sign on a restaurant door that said “Gentiles Only.”

“There were eight or ten of us and at least a couple of us were Jewish,” he told me.

“What'd you do?” I asked him

“We went in anyway.”

That was my father.

After basic training, he shipped out to the Pacific Ocean as a Coast Guardsman on a fireboat stationed off the island of Okinawa.

They lay down smoke as cover for Navy battleships, did reconnaissance missions and more than once, drew enemy fire.

He was already publishing by then.

He served as a correspondent for The Guardian, a Coast Guard newspaper. Many of his stories were also picked up in Stars and Stripes, the US Military's paper of record.

When he returned home to New York, he finished his studies and began practicing law, eventually starting his own practice.

In the late 1950's he meant my mother, Barbara Middelton Davis, a brilliant, progressive and complicated woman. They married and raised a family in a house full of books and culture and interesting, artistic friends.

Mort and Barbara were married for over 30 years. And though they lived apart for the last 7 years of my mother's life, he loved her dearly and always spoke of her in the most glowing terms.

Years later, he was working on a novel. I was helping him prepare it for submission and I noticed that he'd already written the dedication.

It said simply, “For Barbara.”

No remembrance of my father would be complete without mentioning his love of horses and thoroughbred racing.

My father's final resting place, where he'll be buried next to his parents, is Beth David Cemetery. It's a fitting and happy accident that Beth David is just a stone's throw from Belmont Park Racetrack, where my dad spent many happy hours decompressing from his work week.

Among his buddies at Belmont, my dad was known as the Professor for his skill as a handicapper.

I went with him often to Belmont. To see my dad with a Racing Form in one hand and a pencil in the other was to see a man completely relaxed and at ease. A man in his element.

One of the stories he published in Vogue was titled “Mr. Waterhouse was a Horse Player.

And like Mr. Waterhouse, Mr. Horowitz was a horse player.

Most of Mort's professional life was spent working out of the 50th floor in the lower crown of the Woolworth Building, still one of the most incredible pieces of architecture in the city and the country.

I used to visit him, and we'd meet across the street in City Hall Park for lunch, then go upstairs in the elegant elevators to his elegant office.

I never got tired of the breathtaking panoramic views of the city we both loved so much.

He practiced corporate and personal law for almost 60 years. He was still litigating cases -- trying cases in front of a judge and jury –into his 80's.

By all accounts, he was an excellent lawyer. And his professional success allowed his family to lead a very comfortable life.

But he never truly loved the law.

Other than his family and his many friends, whom he cherished, the thing he loved most was writing.

He understood all too well that the odds against supporting his family as a writer were long. He used to love to quote one particular statistic. “Marc,” he'd tell me, there are only 200 people in this country making a living solely as fiction writers.”

I'm sure that statistic was true, but I liked to say, “But Dad, the NY Post alone must have over 200 reporters.” They're making a living and they're writing fiction every day.”

It was a great running gag, one of hundreds we shared.

Though he stopped publishing later in his life, he never stopped writing. As my sister will tell you, he was still writing and revising, with notes and manuscript pages strewn all over her house, until only weeks before he died.

PAUSE

Ernest Hemmingway said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Anyone who has ever tried to create something original and meaningful out of nothing understands what Hemmingway meant.

But my father didn't feel that way.

For him, the very act of writing -- the entire process surrounding it -- was as rewarding as the moment you held a finished story in your hand. Or the moment when a story was accepted for publication.

When the process was going well, he'd say, his characters would take on entirely organic lives of their own.

“I thought I was finished,” he once told me, but that woman won't stop DOING things.”

“That woman,” was of course, Vera, Darcy Mae, Bernadette or one of the many other characters he brought to life in his stories.

His family and friends will remember my dad with great love and respect, but an important part of his legacy will be the characters he left behind on the page.
Before I finish I need to recognize my sister Susan, her husband Alassane and her their son Christopher.

When my father was no longer able to live on his own, they took him into their home in Philadelphia, where he lived the final 7 years of his life in comfort.

To say that it's not easy to live with a fiercely independent man as the ravages of old age slow and humble him is an understatement.

Sue, Alasanne and Chris: Thank you for the sacrifices you made to allow our father to live his final days with the dignity he deserved.

I also need to recognize my partner Lisa. Thank you for the kindness and respect you showed my father in his most difficult days. I love you.

OK, I'm going to end with this.

When I was in high school I wrote a poem for my dad. Maybe I knew on some level that I'd end up many years later, reading it here today.

I thought about editing it into a more mature version, but I decided to read it verbatim. Please bear with me.

FOR MY FATHER

My son

You are that which is me

At your beginning there is my end

My son we are a fist

The palm and its fingers

Any man may know of us

But only in part

My son we are the whole when together

But I will soon not be needed

As you will be ready to take your place at the altar

My son

My only son

Remember me

Let thoughts of me make you smile, nod knowingly and laugh

As you grasp life I am ready to let go

I love you my son

Goodbye Dad

October 11, 2013

It was a pleasure living next door to your family for 20 some odd years. Our children played together and we all enjoyed one another's company at community events. We are sorry to hear of your father's passing but we know you will treasure the many beautiful memories you have shared with him. Our deepest sympathy, Audrey & Carl Klepper & Family

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