WWII vet finally walks at graduation
Fred Taylor ’43 left campus in February of his senior year to enlist in the Army Air Corps Reserve for World War II. Although he completed his degree, he missed his graduation ceremony.
Eighty years and eight Cornell College presidents later, Taylor led the Class of 2023 in turning their tassels at Commencement, receiving his diploma at age 101, on May 14, 2023.
“I was amazed the Class of ’23 took right to it, and applauded,” Taylor said by phone the day he returned home to California. “It really makes up for what I missed. It feels like I’ve completed my experience at Cornell College.”
See video of Taylor’s big moment
Taylor arrived early and was met by Director of Alumni Engagement Zoe Russell, who took him on a Cornell purple golf cart for a pre-Commencement campus tour and a meeting with President Jonathan Brand. He called it the “royal purple treatment.”
Being on campus brought a flood of memories, he said, “especially at Bowman Hall where Peggy and I met, of course. And Armstrong, where I had classes and acted in the little theatre.”
After Taylor left campus in 1943 he flew fighter planes, despite his mother’s wishes that he join the military band. The Springville, Iowa, native was married to Peggy Elaine Newberg ’46 for 75½ years before her death in 2020 and taught band in Bayard, Iowa, and the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District near San Diego.
Their daughter, Linda Taylor, wrote President Brand to ask if her father could attend Commencement. She told him she wanted her father to finally have the special experience of graduation day, “with all the joy that it entails.”
Fred Taylor, who never expected to experience his college graduation, was mentioned frequently during the ceremony and was a focus of the President’s charge to the graduates.
The smile on his face was infectious as he finally experienced his Commencement ceremony, which was 80 years in the making.
See national media coverage of Fred Taylor’s return to campus.
