The Senior Celebrants of 2009

Harvard’s most venerable alumni

Frances Pass Addelson

Frances Pass Addelson | Photograph by Stu Rosner

The oldest graduates of Harvard and Radcliffe present on Commencement day were Frances Pass Addelson ’30, 100, of Brookline, Massachusetts, and George Barner ’29, Ed ’32, L ’33, 100, of Kennebunk, Maine. Both were recognized at the afternoon ceremony by HAA president Walter H. Morris Jr. 

Photograph by Stu Rosner

George Barner

According to University records, the oldest alumni include: M. Louise Macnair ’25, 106, of Cambridge; Halford J. Pope ’25, M.B.A. ’27, 105, of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina; Edward Gipstein ’27, 104, of New London, Connecticut; Rose Depoyan ’26, Ed.M. ’38, 103, of Brockton, Massachusetts; Edith M. Van Saun ’29, 102, of Sykesville, Maryland; Amelia T. Rieman ’29, 102, of Tucson, Arizona; Priscilla Bartol Grace ’58, 102, of Woods Hole, Massachusetts; George H. O’Sullivan ’30, 101, of Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts; Ruth Smith ’29, 101, of New York City; and J. Mack Swigert ’30, 101, of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Related topics

You might also like

Graduates John Lithgow, Bill Rauch, and Bess Wohl took home prizes on Sunday night.

Photographer and writer Morgan Smith chronicles life beyond the violence in Ciudad Juárez and other Mexican towns.

There’s a growing movement to curb light pollution. It starts on your front porch.

Most popular

An animal’s journey from grief to love shows how much humans need each other, too.

Pritzker Hall, designed for collaboration, should be complete in 2027.

The former economics concentrator brings his talent for crunching numbers to netminding.

Explore More From Current Issue

Five individuals are posed in a monochrome outdoor setting near a cinderblock building, some standing, some seated.

Photographer and writer Morgan Smith chronicles life beyond the violence in Ciudad Juárez and other Mexican towns.

Black and white photo of Joseph Murray in a white lab coat sitting in an office.

Nobel Prize recipient Joseph E. Murray dedicated much of his career to organ transplant surgery.

Two figures stand before a large, colorful pixelated face against a yellow background.

Harvard scientists identify hundreds of genes under selective pressure.