Life in the Later Lane
Free speech and anti-war activist Sue Trupin found her niche caring for AIDS patients and supporting black grandmothers
Sue Trupin spent more than a decade living in a countercultural enclave in Canyon, a community in...
She’s a photographer and a flamenco dancer who fights to reduce maternal deaths in poor countries around the world
The difficulties that pregnant women face in impoverished parts of the world can seem overwhelming. But Stacey...
Cathedral Hill doctor became a leader in the treatment and prevention of AIDS.
As a boy, James Campbell spent after-school hours in his mother’s lab. Ruth Campbell was a doctor,...
Through one-man performances, son of Holocaust survivor shares history with high school students
It’s a shocking and head-spinning image: A Jew in a German officer’s uniform is being ministered to...
Being an ‘old soul’ isn’t just about age but an attitude – best nurtured by intergenerational contact
SF SENIORBEAT GUEST COLUMN – There’s a corner of Gen Z internet culture that has popularized the...
How a dedicated teacher of young children became a dedicated civic volunteer.
Sharon Yow’s father drove a truck and tried his hand at farming. Her mother worked a switchboard...
Famed boogie-woogie pianist embroiders her performances with her own hand-crafted art
Caroline Dahl has never forgotten the glamorous, red-haired woman in a sequined dress she saw at a...
The biggest, best walk – and bath of a lifetime.
Tina Martin SENIORBEAT GUEST COLUMN – I love San Francisco, and I love to walk. So when...
‘So hard, all the losses and pain:’ Personal and world tragedies led daughter of Holocaust survivors to life of helping others help others
Juliet Rothman was living in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1992 when her 21-year-old son Daniel attempted a double...
Rock ‘n’ roll and diamonds shaped the life of Arthur Indenbaum
WRITER'S NOTE: Arthur Indenbaum died on November 28, 2025, with his wife and daughter by his side....
A lucky phone call steered him into a 54-year career as a shipping executive.
Tony Hanley felt stuck. He’d flunked out of San Francisco City College and was working at an...
He rode the rails, he slept on the streets, Kevin Fagan spent decades reporting on the homeless for the San Francisco Chronicle
It's a Friday night at Chief Sullivan’s, an Irish-themed bar in North Beach, and The Irish Newsboys...
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Senior Beat examines in-home caregiving crisis: High costs leave most middle-income seniors in the lurch; worker supply lags demand
Because of its importance – and continuing concern – Senior Beat has decided to re-publish in whole this series produced last May by staff writers Mary Hunt and Judy Goddess. Their stories look at a complex health-care system that leaves most middle-income seniors on their own for in-home help affordable only for the wealthy and ...
A friend and landlord’s passing reveals a ‘shocking’ bequest – 801 of them.
Dexter Garnier was in the habit of checking on his friend and former landlord, 76-year-old Frank Brown. So when he didn’t return his calls, Garnier went to Brown’s Dolores Heights home and knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he let himself in with the key Brown had given him and looked around. ...
Somewhere between old age and hospice, there’s a phase called ‘docent.’ I’m fulfilling mine at Point Lobos.
Through college and grad school, I successfully avoided science courses. I took only two: astronomy and natural history, which my husband called “Our Friend, Mr. Sun,” and “The Chicken: A Natural History.” When he met me, I was 32, and he was incredulous I’d survived that long, given my complete lack of understanding of how ...
Bayview seniors and youth work and learn together in award-winning program led by artist whose quilts feature city’s Black residents.
It’s a spring-like March morning in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood. A gaggle of preschoolers is busy painting wooden stakes to mark plantings in the garden of the Dr. George W. Davis Senior Center. They’re working under the watchful eyes of teachers from a nearby elementary school as well as Bayview residents, mostly in their 70s ...
Nicaraguan refugee makes a life as bank teller, school aide and house cleaner – with some perks from customers who became friends
Guess Elba Balderramos’s job, a gig where grateful clients paid for her to cruise to Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii and the Panama Canal, and one promised to leave her $50,000 in her will. Trusted family lawyer? Investment Advisor? Nope. Balderramos, now 79, is a bank teller at the Bank of America in San Francisco, where she’s ...
Seniors may worry about crime on Muni, but the biggest complaints are fellow passengers – rowdy teens, the homeless and the mentally ill
It’s another bumpy afternoon ride on the 38-Geary, San Francisco’s most heavily used Muni line. The bus, with its accordion-like middle, is rattling and bouncing so hard that only riders immune to motion sickness can read. The blue seats reserved for seniors fill up fast. Older people, many toting shopping carts, some with canes, crowd ...
