Informal Communication
It might be interesting, while there still some original residents around, to compile a list of the original owners of the homes pictured. I’m sure my friends Ralph Wells, Marianne Fliflet Wilson and (much later on) Ruth and Bill Harrison, could help.
Since I am the last of my family, I can tell you that Guy A. and Mary Alice McDonnell Boeche were the original owners of 112 Pollard. I believe they bought the house in 1921.
The photo on the Web site shows the house before my father built stone walls across the front and back and replaced the lattice work around the foundation with stones – all from the property.
I was born in this house. My mother was attended by Dr. Arbuckle from Boonton. The closest hospital then was All Souls in Morristown. My brother, Donald Edward, who was six years older than me, was born in New York City in 1918. My father, a photo engraver with Conte Nast in NYC, died of a heart attack in 1937 on the front steps of this house. My mother died in 1964 and my brother, in 1987 in Lake Arrowhead.
I worked for the original Citizen of Morris County for 10 years before transferring to the Daily Record in 1965. I worked there 23 years, covering the Morris County Courthouse as a reporter before becoming associate editor. I retired in 1988 and moved to Newcastle, Maine, in 1990.
I have notified my ML High School classmate Loraine Stoller Van Duyne of your website. Her parents, the Hugh Stollers, were the original family to occupy 63 Pollard. The little story you have with that house is about her sister, Judy. I know she will be fascinated.
Please thank all the people who helped compile this information that is of so much interest to those of us born and raised in ML. I lived there the first 40 years of my life.
Loretta Boeche