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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Professional dancer adds props and humor to her repertoire and senior caregiving to her career accomplishments
Helen Dannenberg came onstage wearing a beige jumpsuit then danced a duet with a large, old-fashioned, collapsible ironing board. It was part of her first 90-minute solo performance, staged at the San Francisco Repertory Theater. It was 1983 and Dannenberg – modern dancer, choreographer and skit writer – was 41. “Old and New, Borrowed and ...
Babysitting dilemma helps carve career path for S.F. Chronicle writer Ruthe Stein
Ruthe Stein’s parents unwittingly imbued her with a love of the movies, a romance that would lead to a lifelong career. Her dad, beleaguered with the responsibility of caring for his daughter on Saturday afternoons, would drop her off at one of Chicago’s giant movie houses. “The movies were his babysitter,” Stein said. “He never checked ...
Former supervisor and judge – and unstoppable voice of conservatives – Quentin Kopp retains his signature querulousness
The welcome sign at Quentin Kopp’s office is hardly welcoming. “Attention” it says. “You are being watched.” Beyond the sign is a path that flanks the side of a nondescript, one-story professional building on West Portal Avenue. Kopp’s office suite, which he shares with several other attorneys, is in the back of the building. There’s ...
HOW DO YOU TAKE YOUR JOE? My coffee ritual has shifted – for a mid-day lift instead of a.m. awakening
What are your coffee or tea routines or experiences? Have they changed? I don’t remember when I started drinking coffee after my mid-day meal instead of first thing in the morning, but that’s my ritual now, and I really look forward to it: Organic French Roast ground for Chemex; I add almond milk, and it’s ...
Never did one writer have so much fun: Carl Nolte’s career put him up close and personal with the good, the bad and the ugly
Journalism, these days, is a young person’s game. As newspapers fold or reduce their staffs, veteran reporters, editors and photographers are laid off, pushed into early retirement, or simply give up on the business they love. But not Carl Nolte. At 88, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist is likely the oldest working journalist in the ...
Pharmaceuticals saleswoman pivots to career in naturopathic medicine
While working for a pharmaceutical company selling drugs to relieve hypertension, Victoria Hamman remembers, she read a study that said exercise and diet could cure it. Although a doctor told her people would never follow through, the idea was planted. Today, as a doctor of naturopathy, exercise and diet plans are standards in the toolbox of therapies she prescribes ...
