Peter Robertson Edelen

Remembering Peter Edelen / as remembered by dear friend Tom Rocco



Peter and I met and roomed together sixty years ago and then, remarkably, we never lost touch. Our friendship grew and remained strong ever since. Peter was so knowledgeable and passionate about Medieval and Renaissance art and the history of the Church that it would be easy to forget how much fun he was to be with. We hosted many movie parties, his idea, for dozens of friends and students and he loved to cook snacks for everyone. He had many "buddies" whom I only knew through him. No matter where we lived or travelled, Peter wrote often about where he was and the art he was seeing, thinking and reading about. When my wife Ellen met Peter 15 years later, she immediately felt welcomed into his life and still feels that friendship even today. So, in addition to the intellectual and aesthetic Peter, I will retain the happy, open man he also was. One of the most important parts of his life that I will always cherish was his deep and endearing love of Ann Hornbostle, a woman at least a generation older than he, a person whose life was also defined by her love of art and music. I cannot think of Ann without Peter, they were such good friends for so many years.

After Peter's heart transplant, he lived a very different life, but still a life filled with his reading and discussing and love of art and history. For me, Peter exemplified the very meaning of "friend."

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Uncle Peter was one of the kindest, gentlest souls I've ever known. When my sister and I were little, we were routinely sent to Baltimore to stay with our grandparents when school was out for the holidays. Luckily for us, our visits with Grandma and Grandpa frequently overlapped with those of Uncle Peter, who would take the train from D.C. I can remember spending long afternoons with him, my sister, and Grandma, each of us seated around the old pine dining room table, as he told us stories of his trips to Europe and of the beautiful cathedrals he'd visited. He was so very intelligent and such a keen observer of detail that his stories always fascinated me. And he had such a gentle nature that Grandma's and Grandpa's golden retriever Bobbie always sat right next to his chair as he spoke, happily resting his chin in Uncle Peter's lap.