Friends grieve loss of Muhlfelder '05

Author: Zamir Ahmed

Thomas Wisdom '05 still remembers the time when he sold his truck during the spring of his senior year at Middlebury. Forced to drive several hours to meet the buyer, he needed a ride back to campus. In desperation, Wisdom asked Sammy Muhlfelder '05 the night before if Muhlfelder would follow him to meet the buyer and give him a ride back to Middlebury. Muhlfelder agreed without hesitation, undeterred by having to wake up at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning to reach the meeting point.

"He could have said no and I would have never held it against him, but he didn't," said Wisdom in an e-mail on Saturday, "and I would say he never even thought of saying no. He saw someone who needed help and he helped me out. That's the type of person Sammy was, he would have gone out of his way just to help me or anyone else."

Many of Muhlfelder's friends, family members, professors and others who knew him will remember him in much the same way. The Newton, Mass. native passed away at the age of 23 on Wednesday, Nov. 29 after battling a debilitating illness over the last several months. Muhlfelder is survived by his parents, Lewis and Esther Muhlfelder, his brother Teddy, his grandmothers, Adelaide Muhlfelder and Nelly Levy, and many aunts and uncles.

Friends remember Muhlfelder as someone who cared deeply about his family.

"He asked me to help him pick out a birthday present for his mom just before graduation," Melissa Klein '07 wrote in an e-mail on Saturday, "and I spent all afternoon with him in town in Middlebury trying to find the perfect gift. He was so sweet, looking for something just right, very cute and loving. After a couple of hours we finally found something and when I met his mom at graduation she was wearing it and he was beaming about it."

During Muhlfelder's time at the College, his sense of humor, charm, kindness and happiness endeared him to those that met him. Friends and professors recalled that he never seemed to stop smiling, even when he was unhappy.

"I do not recollect one time when I saw [him] with a sad face, no matter what," wrote Derick Okwan-Duodu '05 in a note memorializing Muhlfelder on the Web site facebook.com. "[He was] cool, collected, happy, jovial, inspiring, and fun. [He] always had this amazing smile and infectious personality that could light up a room."

Though on first impressions he could strike some as odd, his sarcastic wit and cheerful personality were capable of winning over those that got to know him better.

"The first memory I have of Sammy was from a physics class my sophomore year," said Wisdom. "All I can really remember is thinking, 'who the heck is this kid!? He would ask crazy questions that had nothing to do with anything we were talking about in class."

"While in Madrid, Spain for spring break my junior year I met Sammy again," continued Wisdom, "and got to know him a little, still wondering who the heck this kid was but seeing that he wasn't quite as weird as I initially thought, just a jokester who liked to have fun. It wasn't until senior year when Sammy lived next door to me that I really got to know who he was and what he was about."

In his academic life, Muhlfelder took on a number of challenges that exemplified his creativity, talent and willingness to work hard. During his junior year in 2004, he studied abroad in two countries, spending the fall semester in Ferrara, Italy before moving on to Getafe, Spain in the spring.

"He was a pre-architecture major and he went abroad studying architecture in two different languages," said Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture Pieter Broucke, Muhlfelder's academic advisor. "It's not self-evident to actually study abroad in two foreign languages but that's really the exception rather than the rule."

Muhlfelder's cheerful nature carried over to his academic performance as well, where he thrived as an intelligent and talented student. "He was good-natured, friendly, lively, engaged, with it, interested in the material, fairly passionate in what he's doing," said Broucke about Muhlfelder's attitude in the classroom. "He really made Middlebury work for him - he really got a lot out of this place."

Muhlfelder made his architectural skill known through his work, notably his senior project, a design for a college museum between the old Starr Library and the New Library. Despite the challenges of the project, Muhlfelder excelled by creating a building that showcased his potential.

"It's a very simple building but coming up with a simple solution to a complicated problem is not easy," said Broucke. "This was a very steep learning curve for him. Getting his head around the fact that coming up with a simple solution to something that's really complicated is worthwhile but is also very difficult. He really brought this down to an absolute minimum, single note clarity. If this was a poem, it would be perfect in terms of its relationship between its content and its format."

Muhlfelder ultimately used the project as a path to acceptance at graduate school. He moved on to the University of Michigan's A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture in the fall of 2005, hoping to use the school as a springboard into the architecture profession. Despite his short time in Michigan, Muhlfelder still made an impact in the architecture school, helping to install temporary displays in downtown Detroit in preparation for Super Bowl LX in 2006, as well as continuing to push his boundaries in the classroom through his projects. He was known by his classmates as both a hard worker and a fun guy to be around.

"You could always expect a smile from Sammy, and his lighthearted way of looking at life was amazing," said Sara Sarkisian, a classmate of Muhlfelder's at Michigan. "We'd be sitting in a large lecture hall during class, and if the professor asked a question of the group, you could almost expect a funny and/or completely random response from Sammy, to which all of us would laugh and shake our heads. "He was at the heart of our class, and we are all quite shaken at losing him even though we knew him for a relatively short period of time. He really will stay with us through the rest of our years at Michigan and through our lives."

"The area around his desk was not only a place to work, but a place to take a break, eat a sandwich, and talk about something not related to architecture," said Josh Kleiman, a classmate of Muhlfelder's at Michigan, in a eulogy he read at Muhlfelder's funeral on Dec. 1. "Sammy made sure there was a balance between architecture and maintaining some sort of normal social life that can often get lost in a rigorous grad school program."

Since he passed away, his studio desk has become a memorial to his life, with flowers, memorabilia and photographs of him and his projects placed there to remember him.

To those that knew Muhlfelder, the loss of a great friend, family member, classmate and student will be hard to cope with for a long time.

"Sammy was the sweetest guy," said Klein. "A lot of people are really hurting - we all can't believe he's gone."