Rebecca J. Quint

Remembering Rebecca: Family, friends mourn Rebecca Quint

Rebecca Jodi Quint, 19, loved musicals, played World of Warcraft, and had a passion for languages. The Northwestern University sophomore was found dead in her door room Monday night. The cause of death was suicide.

Rebecca was born at Emerson Hospital and spent almost her entire life in her family home on Indian Pipe Lane in Concord. She attended the Concord Children’s Center, Willard Elementary School, Peabody Middle School, Nashoba Brooks School, and graduated in 2008 from Concord Carlisle High School.

Members of the Concord community, her classmates, family and friends are mourning her loss. Rebecca’s funeral service was held at First Parish in Concord on Friday, March 5, 2010.

Rebecca listened to German heavy metal music, loved to travel and had a close circle of friends, said her parents, Janice Hayden and Elliot Quint.

“Her interests were out of the ordinary, but she pursued them with a passion,” Hayden said. “She was good at getting other people to share her passions.”
Rebecca once convinced her parents to accompany her to a German music festival, where the family stood among thousands of German teenagers and listened to heavy metal.

“There we were in our heavy metal T-shirts,” Elliot said.

The German and linguistics major excelled in her classes at Northwestern University. In addition to German, she also spoke French and took a beginning Japanese class.

“It is a terrible loss,” said Prof. Masaya Yoshida, who worked with her in a research lab on psycholinguistics.

Rebecca was also actively involved with programming in the German Department and planned to study abroad in Germany next year, Prof. Ingrid Zeller said.

“She was very talented,” Zeller said. “She was very hard-working, responsible, intellectually strong and inquisitive.”

Zeller said Rebecca was “engaged and congenial” on a department-sponsored trip.

“She was very kind, very gentle, very supportive of her classmates,” she said.

At Concord Carlisle High School, Rebecca Quint and Adam Johnson started a Japanese Taiko drumming club, “Taiko After Dark.” She called it the first of its kind “east of the Mississippi,” Hayden said. In its first year the club was asked to play at high school football games and in a nightclub.

“She was exceptionally proud of it,” Hayden said.

Alex Zisis of Northwestern University said he and Rebecca were “music buddies.” They attended heavy metal concerts and shopped for CDs together in Chicago.

“She always seemed to be enthusiastic and motivated,” the sophomore said. “It is a complete shock to me. I remember her talking about studying abroad in Germany next year and music festivals that would be going on.”

Though sometimes shy and introverted, Rebecca was very sweet, her father Elliot said. “If you just met her on the street, you wouldn’t think so,” he said. “She wouldn’t make a good politician. She couldn’t glad-hand people.”

Her parents said she loved to plan trips, whether it was a weekend to see theater with her friends in New York City or travel abroad with her family.

“She was that sort of kid,” Hayden said. “She was always involved in decision-making with us.”

Rebecca and her parents spoke over Skype almost every day, they said.

“We’ve had an amazingly wonderful relationship with her,” Elliot said.

Janice and Elliot were in Hawaii on a business trip when they were notified of Rebecca’s death. Two days earlier Rebecca had Skyped them when she became concerned for their safety because an earthquake in Chile was expected to trigger a tsunami in Hawaii.

“She said, ‘Are you going to be safe?’” Elliot said.

After a brief phone call with their daughter later that day to report all was well, Hayden said she and her husband became concerned when they did not hear from Rebecca for two days.

“We miss her terribly.”


(This obituary was written by Lark Turner of Northwestern University with contributions by Rebecca’s parents. It was originally printed in The Daily Northwestern.)

Rebecca is survived by her parents, Elliot Quint and Janice Hayden of Concord, her grandparents Sidney and Janet (Rabinovitz) Quint of Milton and James and Ethel (McDonough) Hayden of Irvine, CA. She is also survived by several uncles, aunts and cousins.

FUNERAL SERVICE
Friday - March. 5, 2010 at 11:00 a.m.
The First Parish in Concord
20 Lexington Road
Concord Center
Concord, MA 01742
978/369-9602
www.firstparish.org

INTERMENT
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Concord, MA

MEMORIAL OBSERVANCE WILL BE IN THE FAMILY RESIDENCE ON:
Friday - March 5 from 1:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Sunday - March 7 from 3:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Monday - March 8 from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Tuesday - March 9 from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.

GIFTS IN HER NAME MAY BE MADE TO:
Heifer International
1 World Avenue
Little Rock, Arkansas 72202
1-800-422-0474
www.heifer.org

or

American Foundation for Equal Rights
P.O. Box 71498
Los Angeles, CA 90071
www.equalrightsfoundation.org


Arrangements under the care of Glenn D. Burlamachi
Concord Funeral Home
74 Belknap Street
Concord, MA 01742
978-369-3388