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
By the time he was 12, Arthur Indenbaum had been playing the piano for four years and...
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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She had to choose between two loves, but one came back and now showing off at the de Young Museum
Corey Weiner was shocked when her portrait of an elderly woman was selected for exhibit at The de Young Open, an online celebration of the museum’s 125th anniversary. For one, odds were against her; 11,500 individual artworks were submitted by 6,190 artists from the nine Bay Area counties. The work of only 763 artists made ...
Educator wrings inspiration from chaotic childhood and a classroom failure to show the power of storytelling in teaching and in life
Kate Farrell stood behind a lectern – “her refuge” – at a San Francisco junior high school in 1967 and peered out at the ninth-graders in her stuffy, overcrowded classroom. It was a hot spring day, right after lunch. She had taken to reading to them from the assigned texts: The Arabian Nights, Old Yeller, ...
Pitching in to serve community needs a way of life for this Dragon lady
Cynthia Dragon’s mural on the front of Kwik & Convenient, the neighborhood market on Monterey Boulevard near Foerster, shouts “Welcome to the Sunnyside,” in large vivid yellow letters over a bright orange sun, with a colorful flower and bee off to one side. The mural is a labor of love, and it’s a vivid example ...
Find of 2,000-year-old coin puts Potrero Hill artist, author and neighborhood historian on path to explore ancient Silk Road empire
Little over a decade ago while visiting Córdoba, a city on the southern coast of Spain, Peter Linenthal stopped at a small shop to buy stamps. It was an errand that changed his life. He noticed a box filled with old coins. He bought one for just $10. It turned out to be much more ...
North Beach tour guide builds on her own unique experiences at center of neighborhood’s idyllic ’70s
Blandina Farley arrived in San Francisco in 1971 and fell in love – with North Beach. It was to be a long-term relationship, a kinship of spirits. Home of the Beats, Italian immigrants, musicians, artists, writers and the strip club industry, North Beach in its heyday was flamboyant, full of color and passion. Lenny Bruce, ...
Intrigued by her parents’ Communism, activist’s path led to San Francisco, where she and her husband have brought news to the Black community for nearly 30 years.
They thought she might become a professional flutist. When Mary Ratcliff was only nine, she joined the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. But by the age of 15, she realized she didn’t have the drive it took to become a professional. More importantly, what she really wanted was to “be with people who discussed the big ...
