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...
All Posts
Reframing Aging – Leadership never gets old: Retired youth counselor helped families overcome ‘disconnectedness’
Mario Martinez is not a lonely man. He’s married and has four daughters, four sons-in-law and nine grandchildren. Yet the 65-year-old retired family therapist talks and thinks about loneliness quite a bit. “Sometimes isolation is forced upon us by health concerns, but a lot of times isolation is a choice,” he said. “And if you ...
Inveterate socializer helps infuse St. Francis Square with activities and now, a special celebration of that work
Jimmye Bynum was such a talkative, sociable person that one of her employers told her she should have been a lawyer. Her natural gift to engage with others led to choices that always seemed to benefit others, as well as herself. “I always loved to talk and help people and maybe that’s why my life ...
Reframing Aging – Caring never gets old: Bus stop chats with lonely seniors – of all ethnicities – fulfill Navajo elder’s ideals
It was one of those “aha” moments. Marianne Spencer Harvey was watching a concert on KQED some years ago. She was singing along and really enjoying herself when the camera panned across the audience: “And there were all those people with white hair. And it finally hit me. I’m in this generation,” she recalled. Still, ...
Despite its challenges, wife and mother says hearing loss a lesson in human nature that brought family closer
Blanche Capilos has severe hearing loss. It has its advantages, she said wryly. In noisy places like a mall or in restaurants, she can turn down the volume on her hearing aids. And she no longer has to hear her husband snore; she takes them out at night. “It’s my secret to a long, happy ...
Under cover of Self-Help for Elderly job, fund director is Cantonese Opera star
Josephine Ma had been explaining her agency’s nutrition programs when she suddenly stood up. “Wait, I’ll be right back.” A minute later she returned holding a stack of photographs. One showed a dainty maiden with a chalk-white face, dark black eyebrows and lashes, vivid red bowed lips and a magnificent headdress. “Here’s me, and here, ...
San Francisco’s ‘Woman Lawn Bowler of the Year’ touts age-old sport that’s got something for every age
Christine Raher had never won a trophy in her life, despite being a team competitor in tenpin bowling throughout college. But within eight years of taking up lawn bowling in San Francisco, she has twice been named Woman Lawn Bowler of the Year by the venerable Golden Gate Park club. Raher has been a member and ...
