A 101-year-old WWII veteran lastly walked at his faculty commencement ceremony, 80 years after he was speculated to

• On Could 14, 101-year-old Fred Taylor walked at Cornell Faculty’s 2023 commencement ceremony.
• He missed his personal class’ commencement ceremony, in 1943, whereas coaching to serve in WWII.
• The heartwarming second was made doable by his 74-year-old daughter, Linda.

Within the fall of 1939, a teenage Fredric Taylor began his freshman 12 months at Iowa’s Cornell Faculty to pursue a level in music training.

Then, in 1942 — the 12 months after the US entered World Struggle II — Taylor made the choice to hitch the Military Air Corps. He fulfilled the necessities to graduate from faculty however, a number of months earlier than his college’s ceremony, he was despatched to Missouri for primary coaching, stopping him from attending his class’ commencement in 1943.

“It was simply one thing that felt incomplete — doing all of the work for the diploma and never strolling throughout the stage and receiving that diploma,” Taylor instructed The Washington Submit in 2023.

This 12 months, he lastly received the prospect. Cornell Faculty honored the World Struggle II veteran at its 2023 graduation ceremony on Could 14.

In accordance with The Washington Submit, Taylor’s 74-year-old daughter, Linda, helped make it occur. Earlier this 12 months, she requested the faculty’s administration if her father may take part within the commencement procession, and after the administration agreed to honor Taylor on the ceremony, she reserved airplane tickets and resort rooms to arrange for her father’s massive day.

“Linda talked about this concept a very long time in the past, however it was a giant shock to me that she had gone forward and made the preparations to do it,” Taylor instructed Cornell Faculty’s Information Middle. “So, in fact, I am stunned and enthusiastic about it,” he stated earlier than the ceremony. 

Jonathan Model, the president of Cornell Faculty, stated in a press release, “Each pupil deserves that second in entrance of their households to rejoice the completion of school, even when it is 80 years later.”

Cornell Faculty was greater than the location of Taylor’s greater training. Taylor met his spouse, Peggy, throughout his senior 12 months. They’d been married for over 75 years on the time of her dying in 2020.

“Cornell formed the remainder of my life, really,” Taylor instructed Cornell’s Information Middle. “For my work and occupation after which assembly Peggy there. I married her and naturally, that formed the remainder of my life. The school was extraordinarily vital to me.”

As for his profession in music, Taylor went on to earn a grasp’s diploma in music training from Drake College within the mid-Nineteen Fifties, in keeping with the Submit, however sadly he missed that commencement ceremony as effectively resulting from his job on the time.

With two levels in music training, Taylor turned a music teacher at elementary, center, and excessive colleges across the nation earlier than retiring.

Of his commencement ceremony on the age of 101, his daughter Linda instructed Cornell’s Information Middle, “Higher late than by no means, I believe!”