“How does one memorialize their only child?” asked Janice Hayden, mother of former Northwestern student Rebecca Quint, at a memorial for her daughter Thursday night.
“Rebecca was the center of our universe,” Hayden said.
NU held the memorial for the Weinberg sophomore in the McCormick Tribune Center. Quint took her own life in her Foster-Walker Complex room and was found dead March 1.
Rebecca’s parents, Hayden and Elliot Quint, were joined at the memorial by more than 50 professors, administrators and friends.
“Her life ended far too soon and we are haunted by many questions about the choice she made,” said University Chaplain Timothy Stevens at the opening of the memorial. “This is a time to mourn, a time to shed tears, to shed tears of love and tears of loss.”
The event was intended to give the community a chance to openly grieve her death, said Burgwell Howard, dean of students.
The German and linguistics major was remembered by professors and friends for her intelligence, kindness and quiet manner.
“Rebecca was a bright, creative and independent young woman,” her father said. “She was always different. She chose her own path. She never wanted to follow the crowd.”
Prof. Franziska Lys, German department chairwoman, read a letter of recommendation written by Rebecca’s German professor, Ingrid Zeller, who was unable to attend Thursday’s memorial. Rebecca planned to study abroad in Munich during her junior year. Lys said Rebecca was one of the department’s best majors.
“It gives me great pleasure to write this recommendation,” Zeller’s letter said. “Among the students who have taken this course with me in the last ten years, Rebecca’s academic performance would rank in the top 1 percent.”
She was a mature, collaborative and creative student, Zeller wrote, who possessed a vocabulary that “went far beyond” her class level.
In addition to German, Rebecca also worked in a psycholinguistics laboratory with Prof. Masaya Yoshida, who said he was impressed when she pointed out a problem with the group’s complex study.
Rebecca took beginning Japanese this fall. Her tearful professor, Yumi Shiojima, said Rebecca, a talented student, participated in a study group outside of class with some of her peers but later dropped the course to focus on German.
“I hope the place you are now is quiet and beautiful and peaceful,” Shiojima said. “And so please, rest in peace.”
Friends of Rebecca were also invited to speak at the memorial.
“I still remember the first day I met her, which was literally the first day of school here,” said Weinberg sophomore Susan Yu. “She was someone I could share everything with. I’m really going to miss her.”
Associated Student Government President Mike McGee said though he did not know Rebecca, he came to know more about her life.
“You really realize how amazing she was,” he said.
Her parents said they did not know why Rebecca chose to take her own life.
“She may have been fighting with demons that she never shared,” Hayden said. “She may have found the world just too heavy to bear. In either case, her suicide has left a huge hole in our hearts and in the hearts of so many.”
