Sunset Profile: Margaret Graf Is a Power Source for Women and Seniors
Margaret Graf
UPDATE November 1, 2023:
Readers met Margaret Graf in the June issue of Supervisor Engardio’s newsletter. She runs the group Senior Power that advocates for great living in the golden years.
We mentioned it was her fourth career, which included being a nurse, mother, and lawyer.
Now at 85, we can add a 5th career: author. Margaret published her first book, which is available on Amazon. The children’s book is called “The Adventures of Rob Raven: Climate Change By Wing & Tail.”
Margaret has seen a lot of change in the 60 years she has lived in the same house across from the Great Highway. But climate change worries her the most for younger generations.
Like many newcomers to San Francisco in the early 1960s, Margaret Graf and her husband Paul arrived in a VW bus eager for all the City by the Bay had to offer. Finding a home on the Great Highway seemed a magical way to start their adventure.
“We were from the Midwest and we were entranced with the ocean,” she says.
Margaret and Paul would raise three children in that home. Their half-century journey was filled with great joys and sorrows as they forged a deep connection to their Sunset community.
A presidential encounter
Margaret left a career in Wisconsin as a nurse. It was interesting work – especially during the 1960 presidential primary when a young, handsome candidate with a bad cold stopped at her hospital clinic for a shot of antibiotics.
The jab done, it turned out that John F. Kennedy didn’t have an insurance card with him. As Margaret figured out a work-around with the billing office, she had time to chat with the future president.
“Because my maiden name – O’Reilly – was Irish, he asked what my friends and I thought about electing an Irish-Catholic. We talked for about 20 minutes,” Margaret recalls. “I was young, about to vote for the first time, and he was asking my opinion! I was so enthusiastic that I went on to campaign for him.”
Mom by day, law student by night
As her kids were growing up, Margaret found a new career as a purchasing manager for an import-export business. But she nurtured a childhood aspiration to become a lawyer. She started law school in the evenings, doing homework alongside her children.
Thus began her third career as a defense litigation attorney specializing in professional liability, often for clients in medical and dental fields.
“There weren’t many female attorneys in my specialty back then,” Margaret says. “Those were challenging times. There was a glass ceiling firmly in place. I might be the only woman in the courtroom. I once heard a judge making a golf date with the opposing attorney! I don’t know if the situation got easier for women over time or if women just got better at handling it.”
She enjoyed those challenges and relished her 20-year career. After retiring in 2005, Margaret and Paul traveled, and her home on Great Highway is filled with mementos of those global journeys.
Tragic loss and challenges
Then tragedy rocked the family. Margaret’s eldest daughter was diagnosed with cancer. Margaret commuted to Portland, Ore. to care for her daughter until her passing. And then a second tragedy struck. Paul developed Alzheimer’s. Drawing on her nursing skills, she cared for him at home for six difficult years.
“It was the hardest job of my life,” she says. “I was looking everywhere for help.”
When the city’s Department of Disability and Aging Services (DAS) invited caregivers to a study group to discuss their needs, she attended and found others facing the same challenges.
“There was so much anger, so much stress in that room,” Margaret says. “People asked, ‘Why isn’t anyone doing anything to help?’ There may have been resources for caregivers but I didn’t know how to access them. There was no centralized hub for information to fit my situation.”
A fourth career
That realization led Margaret to her fourth career in 2018 as the founder of Senior Power, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting seniors, their families, and their caregivers.
The goal would be to empower seniors to care for their physical, mental, and emotional health and to advocate for themselves on local issues, while also offering activities to encourage socialization. A get-acquainted meeting attracted a good turnout, and the organization received a start-up grant from the People of Parkside Sunset and later, some discretionary city funding.
Senior Power has evolved out of necessity. The pandemic ended the monthly meetings in the Taraval Police Station community room, so Margaret started a newsletter to keep seniors connected. She bought a tent so they could once again socialize during warmer months.
Senior Power extended its reach by partnering with the Community Living Campaign, a nonprofit that offers a variety of activities for San Francisco seniors.
She also started a virtual Zoom program known as Senior Connections featuring faculty from the UCSF School of Medicine and the UC School of Law. Initially, the primary topic was COVID, but speakers now discuss general medical and legal topics. Senior Connections has become Senior Power’s primary outreach platform.
Now 84, Margaret is serving her third term representing District 4 on the Advisory Council to the commission that oversees DAS, the agency that first inspired her to establish Senior Power.
A new friendship in the golden years
Around the time that Margaret was knitting together a community for Sunset seniors, she met Dorothy Lathan. The women have lived two blocks apart for more than 60 years, yet until 2018, their paths had never crossed.
Their friendship took root as they discovered how much life experience they shared: each had moved to the Sunset in the early 1960s, raised three children, had notable professional and civic careers, tragically lost a daughter, and then cared for a husband suffering from dementia.
“It is so interesting to me that two women lived such parallel lives,” Margaret says.
Both Margaret and Dorothy were interviewed for 80 Over 80, a project to collect the stories of 80 San Franciscans over 80 years old. Since then, they have told their stories in other media, clearly enjoying each other’s company and their ‘sister act.’
“I believe strongly in community,” says Margaret. “As I’ve gone through the deaths of people very precious to me, community work takes my head somewhere else. It saved me then and it still saves me. I’m also striving to be a role model for my kids. I don't want them to be afraid of growing old; I want them to see that age is just another stage in life.”
The Rest of the Story…
Dorothy Lathan and Margaret Graf
You’ve read Margaret Graf’s inspiring story. Now learn about her remarkable neighbor Dorothy:
“I’d probably passed her house a thousand times. But we didn’t meet. We’re all enclosed in our private spaces.” That’s how Dorothy Lathan describes living two blocks from Margaret along the Great Highway for 56 years without ever meeting. But when they did – in 2018 – they discovered remarkable parallels in their lives. Read about Dorothy Lathan’s trailblazing journey.
Reported and written by volunteer community journalist Jan Cook. We encourage retired journalists and student journalists in high school and college to volunteer as writers for Supervisor Engardio’s newsletter. Interested? Apply here. Do you know a story you would like to see featured in the newsletter? Tell us about it here.