The way we were
Tercentenary Theatre was still noisy and crowded on Commencement Day when Harvard graduate Donald Freeman Brown decided to take a walk around campus. Behind University Hall, he listened to the Harvard University Band and stood in line to swing a felt-tip mallet at Bertha, the 8-foot-wide bass drum. Like many graduates, Brown has been talking about little except Commencement ever since. But his perspective is longer — a lot longer. Brown, age 102, graduated from the College in 1930. He was the oldest alumnus at Commencement this year, beating George Barner ’29 by a month. Brown was a junior in the fall of 1928 when the first Bertha was rolled out onto the field at Harvard Stadium. “He remembers it well,” said his daughter, Dorcas Brown Sefton, who was with him at the May 26 Commencement, along with her brother, Christopher Brown, and sister, Alyson Toole. “He was very pleased to give...