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Peter Mulhern

Class of 1973

Peter Mulhern

Peter Mulhern

ANNAPOLIS - Peter Mulhern (63) of Annapolis, Maryland passed away unexpectedly on August 25th surrounded by his loving family. He will be remembered for his unwavering devotion to his family, keen intellect, culinary prowess, avid passion for cycling, and irreverent sense of humor.

Peter was born September 4th, 1955 and spent his childhood in Durham, New Hampshire where his father taught physics at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). After graduating from UNH, Peter earned a law degree at Cornell Law School, where he served as Managing Editor of the Law Review. He subsequently received an LLM degree at Harvard Law School.

Following his legal studies, Peter worked both as a practicing attorney and as a law professor. When his youngest children were toddlers, Peter decided to stay home full time and began a long, storied, and multi-faceted career as a stay-at-home dad. His work from then on consisted of driving to and from school, swim meets, and water polo matches, full-time cook in our home kitchen he fondly called "The Bistro Daddy", countless hours spent teaching his children how to write well enough to meet his high standards, and genuine enthusiasm in every hobby, sport, school project, and research paper his children could dream up.

He is survived by his wife, Carla, four children, Sarah, Meghan, Kathleen, and Daniel, and one granddaughter, Eliana, all of whom he whole-heartedly adored. The adoration was mutual, and he will be dearly missed. He is also survived by his mother Katherine, his sister Kathy Ann, and brother David.

Educating his children was one of Peter's greatest passions, so in lieu of flowers, the family would like to request donations in memory of Peter Mulhern be made to The Key School (Annapolis, MD) or McDonogh School (Owings Mills, MD). 

During this painful time, we are reminded of one of Peter's favorite quotes from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. "'Go back?' he thought. 'No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!' So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter."