Jesse Mock

PISGAH FOREST - Jesse Mock, 85, of Pisgah Forest died Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006, at his residence. Mock was an active member of the community for more than 20 years. He was one of the founders of the Brevard Friends (Quaker) Meeting and the Transylvania Dispute Settlement Center (now The Center for Dialogue). He served in various capacities with the Friends Meeting and was a mediator for 12 years with the Center. In 2004, he and his wife, Dorothy, were presented with the Center for Dialogue's first "Architects of a Peaceful Community" award. At the presentation ceremony, Dialogue Center executive director John Fenner said that in his mediations, Mock "sought that of God in every person." Mock and his wife were honorary members of the Transylvania Citizens Improvement Organization, an agency devoted to improving relations and providing equal justice among the races. Mock was publicist for the former Transylvania Peace Fellowship. He also served more than 10 years as a volunteer with TREND, the mental health organization. The volunteer group handled emergency calls when the regular staff was not on duty. A longtime peace activist, Mock was a conscientious objector in World War II. In that capacity, he served in many public service tasks as a forester in Maryland, a surveyor in the Southwest, a firefighter in Oregon, a guinea pig for a hepatitis medical experiment at the University of Pennsylvania and as an attendant at a school for the mentally retarded in New Jersey. He was a messenger at the charter conference of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. Over the years, Mock participated in scores of marches, demonstrations and vigils seeking to foster peace and justice. He was able to have a $5 million bond issue recalled that would have provided fallout shelters for county officials in Bergen County, N.J., viewing the construction of such shelters as encouraging the use of nuclear threats. He edited several pamphlets written by Columbia University professors, one arguing that use of fallout shelters would be futile in a nuclear conflict and another calling for the transition of a military economy to a civilian economy. Mock served two-year terms on executive committees of the American Friends Service Committee and the Friends Committee on National Legislation. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a major in journalism, Mock began his journalism career in Washington in 1947. For the first four years, he was a reporter for a small agency that served as Washington correspondent for a number of newspapers and radio stations, mainly in the Southeast. Next he joined McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.'s Washington bureau, reporting on electric-power subjects for several McGraw-Hill magazines. These included Electrical World, Engineering News Record and Business Week. In 1953, Mock was transferred to New York where he served in various administrative and editorial positions for Electrical World magazine. In 1962, he received the Jesse H. Neal award for excellence in business journalism. The award was for a series of editorials in Electrical World magazine which were credited with helping to defeat federal funding for a $95 million generating plant at the Hanford nuclear reactor in Washington State. Born in Winston-Salem in 1920, Mock was the son of Julius Alexander and Edna Elizabeth Mock, both of whom died in 1959. He was also preceded in death by two brothers, Thomas Otto and William Mahlon Mock; and a sister, Nancy Tesh. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy, of Pisgah Forest; two daughters, Deverie Turnbull, of Valle Crucis and Danci Mock, of Roseland, N.J.; two sons, Jeffrey Arden, of Nelson, B.C., Canada; and Jon Adlai, of Providence, Utah; and five grandsons. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to American Friends Service Committee, 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102, or to Friends Committee on National Legislation, 245 Second St. N.E., Washington, DC 20002. A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17, on his 86th birthday at St. Timothy's First United Methodist Church in Brevard. Online condolences may be made at www.moore-fh.com. Moore Funeral Home of Brevard is serving the family.