Mitch Albom
Mitch Albom was born in May 1958 in New Jersey. Originally, he was a pianist and wanted to pursue a life as a musician. Instead he became a journalist, and later an author, screenwriter, and television/radio broadcaster. In his college years, he met sociology professor Dr. Morrie Schwartz, who would later be the focal point of the memoir Tuesdays with Morrie.
Morrie Schwartz
Morrie Schwartz was a sociology professor at Brandeis University who was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, at the age of 77 in August 1994.[7] The son of Russian immigrants, Schwartz had a difficult childhood, indelibly marked by the death of his mother and his brother's infection with the polio virus. He later went on to work as a researcher in a mental hospital, where he learned about mental illness and how to have empathy and compassion for other people; later in life, he decided to become a sociology professor in hopes of putting his accumulated wisdom to use. This is where he met his student Mitch Albom, who would later become a lifelong friend. Schwartz was married to Charlotte Schwartz, with whom he had two children. After a long battle with ALS, Schwartz died on 4 November, 1995. His tombstone reads, "A teacher until the end."
