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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Mutual support but separate hobbies and workshops keep crafty couple’s marriage going strong
They met on the dance floor of the Avenue Ballroom on Taraval Street. Etta Hallock was an instructor, Bill Lafferty a student. She liked Bill because he wasn’t pompous like other men she had met. “He was just Bill.” He liked her because she didn’t hold too tight. Other women he’d dated didn’t like him ...
SFUSD admin behind Bay Area’s only school nurse credentialing program adds pickleball pro to her resumé
When Mary Jue, 59, handled a pickleball paddle for the first time eight years ago, it handed back the excitement she remembered as a kid growing up in the Richmond District. “It instantly brought up all those rewarding competitive feelings,” said Jue, who was the youngest daughter and seventh of nine children. “I couldn’t wait ...
Persistence and adaptive technology help accident victim regain proud position as the family helper
Writing checks to pay the family bills doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. For most of us, it’s a monthly chore to which we don’t give much thought. For Virginia Cheng, that routine task is a symbol of recovery from a crippling auto accident and a measure of her willingness to lend a hand to ...
Playwright, producer, actor, writer, you-name-it stays enmeshed in Bay area theater despite its ups and downs
When she was a child and the rain was so heavy they couldn’t play on the beach outside their vacation home, Linda Ayres-Frederick and her four siblings would dress up and perform plays. A closet’s sliding doors were their curtain. “I liked dressing up in my mother’s big hat with flowers and flouncing about.” But ...
Former sailor and academic researcher forged unique bond as writing and editing duo
It’s a Thursday morning and the North Beach branch of the San Francisco Public Library has just opened. Like almost every Thursday morning for the last 10 years, Janis Kaempfe and Claude Ury have settled down at one of the branches’ eight networked computers. Ury is there to polish up his review of a recently ...
Teacher, translator, artist, and full-time caretaker: Finding time is just one of his challenges
Hitoshi Shigeta has perfected the art of juggling. Not the act you might see in a circus, but the act of a man whose life has three demanding priorities. He’s a working artist and teacher of art, an English-to-Japanese translator of business documents fighting against a technological wave, and full-time caretaker to his 27-year-old autistic ...
