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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Sculptor & jeweler who finds inspiration in the sea, land and found objects discovers art in her own baldness
Ann Hedges began losing her hair when she was just nine years old. She started drawing to cope, “creating a world that was mine, and one I belonged in,” she said. “Along with having alopecia areata, I was short for my age and painfully shy.” With both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Fine Arts ...
Starting over in the U.S. at 62: Her family was exiled by the Nazis then the Russians. Eventually, she followed other family members to America.
It didn’t bother Shulamis Koyfman that her family thought she’d probably fail the California Board of Nursing licensing exam; she thought so, too. After all, she was 65, she’d only lived in the United States for three years and her English was, she recalls, not so hot. “Honestly, I was 100 percent sure I would ...
Living through the worst: A personal story of one woman’s quest to regain hope and the genesis of ‘Senior Power’
We asked Senior Power! founder Margaret Graf to tell us about the biggest challenge she has faced and what helped her move through it. Margaret Graf saved herself by helping her neighbors. She was inconsolable after the deaths of her daughter and her husband. Finding little support in her Parkside neighborhood, where she had lived ...
Filipino author who helped spread the culture and history of his country still building community in S.F. and advocating for Asian Americans
When you don’t know the “other,” it’s easy to stereotype. If you want to learn about another culture, said Oscar Peñaranda, Filipino educator, author, and activist, “you need to read their literature, look at their artists.” Education, learning about others, enlarges your world and challenges your biases, and by education he refers to much more ...
WHAT TREATS SWEETEN YOUR DAY? For myself, I find it’s hard to be monogamous
“Sweetmeat” is an archaic term for confectionaries. But it rhymes with treats, and that’s what I’m talking about. Cookies and cakes, custards and ice cream, pastries and pies, puddings, and tarts. Oh my! Throughout this pandemic, one thing that kept me sane, was knowing that after lunch and dinner I would have my sweetmeat with ...
Reader’s Theater gives people the chance to perform without pressure: no memorizing lines, just building confidence in speaking in front of others
There’s no memorizing lines or pressure to perform in “Acting and Self Expression,” said instructor Kathleen Stefano, “so no stress.” Which makes it a perfect class for anyone who wants to develop self-confidence or just have fun. It’s one of the many classes hosted by the San Francisco Senior Center, housed in a 1939 Streamline ...
