Wesleyan lost one of its most recent graduates last week when Peter Morgenstern-Clarren ’03, originally of Shaker Heights, OH., jumped in front of a moving train in his hometown on the night of April 21. He was hospitalized and put on life support until he passed away the following day, according to Director of University Communications Justin Harmon.
Morgenstern-Clarren was 22 and had been tutoring children from underprivileged families at his former elementary school before he died.
A memorial service will be held Sunday afternoon from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in the Woodhead Lounge. A program is planned and those who knew Morgenstern-Clarren are encouraged to come and contribute to a book of remembrances that will be given to his family.
Derek Garcia ’04, a close friend of Morgenstern-Clarren’s, attended his funeral in Shaker Heights last Sunday. Garcia said the rabbi at the funeral posed a question to the several hundred people in attendance.
“Peter’s problem was he cared too much,” the rabbi said, according to Garcia. “Is it possible to care too much?”
Several of Morgenstern-Clarren’s friends said he was a compassionate and intelligent individual who was never afraid to speak his mind and stand up for what he believed in.
“If he should be remembered for anything, [it is] his love for the world and the people around him and his concern for world issues and things that matter,” Garcia said.
Other friends of Morgenstern-Clarren expressed similar sentiments.
“I have so many memories of Peter, but I think I will always remember him in the library, playing music, and off at a strike or rally fighting for a cause,” wrote Rebecca Edwards ’04 in an email. “Those were his passions for sure. More personally I will always remember how nice he was to me the very first week I started school here as a lowly freshman (he was a sophomore) and continued to be a really true friend after that.”
“Peter was a great activist and a good friend,” wrote Kerry Doyle ’04 in an email. “He was always asking questions and seeking truth. Peter took injustice personally, but while he was often intensely serious, he could also be hysterically funny.”
In addition to being a history major, Morgenstern-Clarren participated in a number of different causes on and off campus, working to secure benefits for Wesleyan janitors and protesting against the International Monetary Fund.
Morgenstern-Clarren’s mother, Pat Morgenstern-Clarren, said that he would want people to go out and vote in November in order to make change in the world, according to Dean of the Senior Class Louise Brown.
His father, Hadley Morgenstern-Clarren, reiterated the point. He said that his son would want Wesleyan students to try to make the world a better place without feeling like they need to carry all of the weight themselves. He said that Morgenstern-Clarren valued Brown, his friends, and his professors at Wesleyan.
“He was very appreciative of his Wesleyan connections and his Wesleyan education,” his father said.
His father said that he would welcome anyone who wanted to contact his family to talk.
“He was really interested in ways to make the world a better place to live in,” Brown said. “He left this world wanting people to keep working to make it a better place.”
Brown also said that Morgenstern-Clarren’s mother is trying to get a bill passed by the Ohio State Legislature in order to raise awareness about mental health issues.
She said that Morgenstern-Clarren was a determined student and sensitive person who also had a good sense of humor.
“I’m deeply saddened by the fact that he’s no longer with us,” she said.
Morgenstern-Clarren was also a member of the United Student and Labor Action Committee (USLAC) and a leader of the campus chapter of Amnesty International in addition to being the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band he played in with Garcia, 8 Fingered Jakob.
“Through the short time that I knew Peter, I could tell that he was not only a genuinely compassionate person, but truly unique as well, not like the rest of us in our predictable Wesleyan ways,” wrote Kristy Mercado ’05 in an email. “He cared so much about the world and wasn’t afraid to let people know in a variety of expressions.”
Mercado had worked with Morgenstern-Clarren on USLAC, specifically their Justice for Janitors sit-in.
Garcia said that Morgenstern-Clarren was a solitary person who at the same time “meant so much to so many people in so many ways.” He said that Morgenstern-Clarren’s parents have only recently discovered how many people their son had befriended at Wesleyan.
“He wasn’t the friend I went to when I wanted to laugh,” Garcia said. “He was definitely the friend I talked to when I had something serious to talk about.”
Morgenstern-Clarren was fluent in several languages and very little of the journals that he kept were written in English. His last journals were written in Russian, a language he had only learned several months earlier. Because of this, Garcia said, what he was thinking in his final days is still unclear.
“He had a gift for languages,” Garcia said. “He could pick them up really easily.”
Garcia, who is currently working in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said he last spoke to Morgenstern-Clarren a week and a half before his death. He said he was talking to Morgenstern-Clarren over the phone, trying to convince him to come on a backpacking trip around Europe.
“I told him, ‘The next time I talk to you, I want you to be the happy Peter I know, the one who’s going to tell me he wants to come travel with me this summer,’” Garcia said.
Garcia said that Morgenstern-Clarren was depressed, but had told him that he was feeling better.
The next call Garcia said he received came last Friday from Morgenstern-Clarren’s mother who told him about what had happened. Garcia said he immediately flew to Shaker Heights, where he was a pallbearer at the funeral.
“It’s still so much to deal with,” Garcia said. “When you lose a good friend you lose a part of yourself. You lose a sense of who you are.”
Garcia said that few Wesleyan students had attended the funeral due to the suddenness of Morgenstern-Clarren’s death and the difficulty in reaching his friends, many of whom had graduated and were all over the country.
Morgenstern-Clarren is survived by his parents, Hadley and Pat, and his sister, Rachel. A memorial garden is being made at his elementary school where he recently worked as a tutor because he was interested in organic gardening. Memorial contributions can be sent to Shaker Schools Foundation for the Peter Morgenstern-Clarren Memorial at the administration building at 15600 Parkland Drive, Shaker Heights, Ohio 44120.
His family is also composing an album of remembrances and encouraged anyone who wants to contribute to mail them at 3009 Claremont Road, Shaker Heights, OH 44122.
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