W.B. McDaniel, Oldest Alumnus, Dies at 107

Walton Brooks McDaniel '93, the College's oldest graduate, died last Saturday in Haddon Heights, N.J. He was 107 years old.

McDaniel received three degrees from Harvard: A.B. magna cum laude (1893), A.M. (1894), and Ph.D. (1899). He was born in Cambridge in 1871, the son of a local lawyer, and attended the Cambridge Latin School before coming to Harvard.

McDaniel taught the Classics at Harvard from 1899 to 1901, and once gave Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 a mark of D-minus in a Latin course.

In his 50th Anniversary Class Report in 1943, McDaniel wrote, "The mere fact that President Roosevelt chanced to be one of my students at Harvard in 1901 makes my ultra-conservative friends eye me askance, suspecting that I may be partly responsible for some of his economic novelties. I wish that the Latin of my poor teaching could have made even a microscopic contribution to his masterful leadership in this war."

Classics

McDaniel taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1903 to 1937, when he retired as chairman of the Classics department there. He also taught such notables as Ezra Pound and Thornton Wilder.

A dedicated Italophile, McDaniel traveled extensively throughout the Italian peninsula and wrote "Roman Private Life and Its Survivals," a book that compared and contrasted modern Italy and ancient Rome.

McDaniel was an avid collector of classical relics, and donated his extensive collection of artifacts to Harvard 30 years ago in memory of his first wife, the former Alice Garlichs. He also wrote "The Pleasures and Hazards of Collecting Antiques: Riding a Hobby in the Classical Lands," a reminiscence of his travels and collecting experiences.

In recent years, McDaniel devoted most of his time to collecting fossils and seashells near his homes in Coconut Grove, Fla. and Martha's Vineyard. He once attributed his longevity to good genes, good wives, and abstinence from tea, coffee, alcohol and tobacco.

McDaniel is survived by his second wife, the former Helen Stock.