Harry Gersh (1912–2001)

Harry Gersh was born to a Jewish family in New York City, to a long line of painter-decorators. He lived in New York and Philadelphia for much of his early life, and enlisted in the U.S. Army in World War II. He was eventually transferred to the Navy, where he served until 1945 and was discharged with the rank of Acting Chief Petty Officer. After the war, he worked as a journalist and for the New York State Department of Labor, where he served as director of public information. He also worked in the publicity department of the Textile Workers Union of the CIO. He went to be public relations director at Martin E. Segal Company, an actuarial firm. He also wrote some 100 radio and television scripts, numerous magazine articles, and nine books. These included The Sacred Books of the Jews: Page 1 (1968), When a Jew Celebrates (1971), The Animals Next Door: A Guide to Zoos and Aquariums of the Americas (1971), and Women Who Made America Great (1962).
In 1976,
Gersh retired, but having missed his opportunity to pursue higher education in his younger days, he took up the challenge of going to college. At age 63, he was accepted at Harvard University, which his son John had already attended. To help pay his tuition, as an established writer and the oldest known student to enroll at Harvard, he applied for and won a $10,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to write about his experiences. He studied Byzantine history, astronomy, linguistics, and American history, and was excused from the first-year English composition course required of other freshmen. After graduation, he spent much of his time on Martha's Vineyard in Cape Cod.