100-year-old man attends his 80th reunion at Bates

Published: June 9, 2008 | 7157th good news item since 2003

There were no classmates to share memories with, but 100-year-old Alfred Webber found plenty of admirers when he returned to Bates College to mark his 80th class reunion this weekend.

“They really make a lot of it,” said the Chadds Ford, Pa., resident, who flew to Maine for the gathering of about 1,000 Bates alumni from classes spanning several decades. Webber is the only member of any of the classes of the 1920s who attended the reunion, the college said. A Lisbon Falls, Maine, native, Webber majored in physics and math at Bates before launching a three-decade career with DuPont Co. that took him to southeastern Pennsylvania.

He stays active and involved in his hobbies, which include astronomy, and drives a car. “My license expires in 2011,” he said during a telephone interview yesterday.

Born on Oct. 10, 1907, when Theodore Roosevelt was president, Webber graduated from high school in his hometown before enrolling at Bates. The private, liberal arts school’s 1928 yearbook makes reference to Webber’s interest in French and music.

His first job after graduation was orchestra director at Franklin High School in Franklin, Mass. Webber became principal at Brookline High School in Brookline, Mass., in 1937, but returned to school for graduate work in physics.

Asked what he credits for his many years, Webber said: “If a woman asks me that, I say I had a good wife.”

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