Bess E. Rosenzweig had fallen in love with Kenya. She spent much of her free time in the region, volunteering as a teacher outside Nairobi, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in nearby Tanzania, befriending locals.
The former Cambridge resident told friends she was never happier than when she was in Africa, and, after graduating from Georgetown University this past spring, she had plans, ultimately, to settle there.
But on July 25, near the end of a two-week vacation in Kenya with her mother, Claire Clube, 48, their plane to Nairobi crashed in Aberdare National Park. The cause of the crash is unknown. A search-and-rescue effort took several days; their bodies, and that of their pilot, were recovered three days later, in the Aberdare mountain range. Rosenzweig was 22.
Friends and family remembered Rosenzweig for her relentless humanitarian drive, fearless sense of adventure, and innate ability to find and keep friends. She loved animals, said her father, David Rosenzweig of Nantucket, and had already shown great interest in protecting African wildlife. She possessed a natural intelligence, with a particular passion for psychology and African studies. And she accumulated languages quickly and with ease. (Swahili was a particular favorite.)
“When she found something she was passionate about, she invested in it wholly, and devoted all her efforts toward it,” he said.
Bess Rosenzweig was born in London on Feb. 16, 1991. At 10, she moved with her father, mother and older brother, Jake, to Nantucket and then to Cambridge, where she graduated from Buckingham Browne & Nichols in 2009. She received her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown this past spring and had plans to move to Cape Town, South Africa, to work at the Lalela Project, which brings arts education to young children.
Her college roommate, Amy Lewis, said she was immediately drawn to Rosenzweig, who was warm and friendly and spontaneous. “She was integral to my whole college experience,” she said. Lewis once accompanied her roommate to Kenya, a trip she called among her happiest college memories.
“When I went to Kenya with her, I could tell she was just meant to be there,” she said. “Here was this tiny, blond-haired, blue-eyed girl who could speak Swahili, and everyone there just loved her. I’ve never seen such a warm reaction to anyone.”
Rosenzweig often spoke of what drew her to Kenya, Lewis said. She felt the people there had the right perspective on life; they were free and open, she told friends, and nonjudgmental. It was how she wanted to live.
Her friends say she had already succeeded. Rosamund Johnson, a close friend from Buckingham Browne & Nichols, said Rosenzweig was always up for an adventure, planned or on a whim. The two climbed Kilimanjaro two years ago, she said, and, although neither was particularly athletic, they made it to the top.
“It was my proudest moment, and I’m very lucky to have shared it with Bess,” she said. “She was very mentally strong and encouraging, and I couldn’t have made it all the way up without her.”
Rosenzweig’s mother was similarly drawn to Kenya. At the time of her death, Clube had been sponsoring at least one Kenyan child, helping to pay for education and basic needs. She loved traveling in Africa with her daughter and often invited her daughter’s friends to come along.
Clube, born Sept. 8, 1964, in Wiltshire, England, was described by family as a warm and generous free spirit. She spent most of her life working as a freelance artist, weaving tapestries, doing metal work, and handcrafting jewelry that she would sell at local galleries. She was also a skilled photographer, painter, and poet and received a degree in fine art from Bennington College.
Clube leaves her son; her father, Malcolm; her mother, Diana Duncan; and her husband, Robert Perkins.
After her divorce from David Rosenzweig in 2008, she moved from Cambridge, splitting her time between Virgin, Utah; London; and Glen Etive, Scotland. She preferred small, quiet places close to nature, said her son, Jake. She believed some of her best art came from materials found on the beach or in the woods.
“When I was young and we lived in Nantucket, we all used to go to the beach together,” her son said. “My mom would never be lying in a towel under an umbrella, she’d be a long way down the beach, bent over, searching for heart-shaped rocks. Years later, she decorated an entire wall with those rocks at her place in Scotland.”
She was loving, supportive, and eccentric, he said. He remembered she would often show up wearing original, artistic outfits: a bright purple jacket, a T-shirt covered in butterflies.
She was also a fierce collector, said David Rosenzweig. Something as small as a button could catch her interest, if she believed it to be well crafted.
Olivia Crowley Gottlieb, a graduate of Buckingham Browne & Nichols, remembered spending summers with Bess Rosenzweig and her mother on Mykonos in Greece. One summer, she was waiting for them to pick her up from the airport when they bounded up, barefoot, tanned, and in flowing skirts, and hugged her. They drove to their house in a jeep with no roof, made fruit smoothies, and talked on the patio long into the night.
The two friends spent many of the next days exploring the island on four-wheel all-terrain vehicles.
One evening, after traveling to a beach on the other side of the island, they couldn’t get their vehicle to start.
“Finally, we got it to start, and it was just as the sun was starting to set,” she said. “We drove back in silence through the hills of Mykonos as the sky turned pink around us.
“That was the thing about Bess — she was vivacious and full of life, but she also knew how to have such quiet moments. It was the best moment of my life.”
A memorial service for Rosenzweig will be held Sept. 28 at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.
David Rosenzweig said his daughter’s passions were never far from her, not even in death. Reports from the search-and-rescue team that found her described a herd of elephants circling the aircraft and bodies, almost standing guard. Fitting, he said, for someone who loved them so much.
Nikita Lalwani can be reached at nikita.lalwani@globe.com.