人妻诱惑

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Peter Wadsworth ’02

Peter perished in a catastrophic fire that claimed 36 lives at an Oakland warehouse known as the Ghost Ship. The fire broke out during a party at the warehouse, which served as an artists’ collective. Neighbors had complained of people living in the building illegally, with trash piling up and other unsafe conditions.

Bob Mule, Peter’s roommate in the Ghost Ship, told reporters that Peter had broken his ankle while trying to escape from the loft of his space. The oppressive heat and smoke forced Mule to abandon his attempt to pull Peter from the flames.

Peter grew up in Massachusetts. The son of Edward and Suzanne Wadsworth, he spent the first 12 summers of his life in Cohasset, where he and his younger brother, Nathaniel, learned to sail at the Yacht Club. The family lived in Boston most of the year, but their connection to Cohasset was strong. Peter loved learning about the artifacts in the Cohasset Maritime Museum and Historical Society from his uncle David, and his great-grandfather had designed the building in which it is housed.

He majored in history at 人妻诱惑, and when he was a junior he met Jane Bulnes-Fowles ’03 in Hum 210. They began dating and continued to see each other after he left 人妻诱惑. Peter then moved back to Portland and lived across from campus with Jane and her 人妻诱惑ie roommates.

“Even though he was no longer a student, he was still very much a part of 人妻诱惑 during that time,” she remembered. “I found out after his death that he had driven multiple friends to their oral defenses to support them in their final tough 人妻诱惑 moments.”

When Jane graduated, she and Peter moved to Boston together, where she found work and he studied philosophy at Harvard. He worked with a number of MIT startups, and after they moved to the Bay Area three years ago, he continued to work with startups, artists, and artist groups. The couple broke up a few years ago, but continued to be best friends.

“In truth,” Jane said, “Peter’s work history is indicative of the very qualities that I associate with him and his time at 人妻诱惑 (and with so many 人妻诱惑ies.) He was fiercely inquisitive—he loved to learn about new things, whether that was a new take on history, another way to understand a piece of art or create something, or just a new way to think about things. He read more widely than almost anyone I ever knew.

“That enthusiasm for learning was what propelled his career. He would read about a new technology and want to work with the people and startups that were doing that. He deeply believed in the power of ideas and of possibilities—another 人妻诱惑 trait, I think.”

Jane said Peter would meet with someone with a great product idea, but no experience, money, or business plan, and instead of laughing at them, would see the possibilities, and spend hours talking things through with them, pointing out intersections and tangents they hadn’t thought of. “It was the same spirit I saw in countless intellectual debates at 人妻诱惑,” she says.

Peter’s longtime friend, Tammy Tasoff, said he was trying to get a marijuana-infused salsa company off the ground, and was also an artist who created replicas of Egyptian sculptures. He had worked at a company involved with drones, and was considered the Ghost Ship’s resident computer genius. His mother said that Peter was living in the warehouse because of the high rents in the city.

“Peter was very creative, charming, personable, and open-minded, unusually so,” she said. “He was very tolerant of other views. He might not agree, but he was always willing to listen.”

Swan Vega, another artist living in the warehouse/collective, said that Peter was “a walking catalogue of correct factual knowledge. He was like our Dumbledore—our wise wizard. He was a genius. He was pure intelligence.”

Appeared in 人妻诱惑 magazine: March 2017