How Older Americans Living Alone Are Making It Work

“I was the caregiver for my mother and father in my 20s and 30s,” says Davis, a consultant for nonprofit organizations and vice president of strategy and evaluation at the California Black Women’s Health Project. “After they passed away and became ancestors, I started thinking about my own aging journey. I’m an only child. I don’t have children, a husband, sisters or brothers. If I needed the type of care I provided to my parents, I don’t have the traditional safety net. If something happened, there’s not a mini-me.”

But, she thought, she could build a network with her friend and cofounder, Kiara Pruitt. “I realized I needed to be intentional about what my aging support system could look like,” says Davis. “That led to conversations with my friends, then to community conversations and to SAGE.” Its mission: joining together for healthy, active, socially connected and financially secure later lives. SAGE’s 2,000 members share aging experiences, engage virtually and in ​person, and meet at events, including summer reunions with educational sessions covering everything from aging in place to caregiving to dating.

Davis savors her single life. She has traveled extensively in Europe, Australia, South America and Africa, where she has done volunteer work. And she has launched other community projects through the California Black Women’s Health Project, including the Sankofa Elders Project, aimed at empowering older Black adults to advocate for community solutions to health disparities.

“Solo aging gives you the autonomy to center your own needs,” says Davis. And she is keenly aware of the importance of creating a safety net of friends who are like family to her. “You won’t have spousal benefits to enhance your savings or an adult child to contribute to your care,” she notes. “Our health care system has standards and policies, but it won’t advocate for you like a loved one would. We all need a network.”

‘We’ve seen everything … That’s what makes us as strong as we are’

Vicki Ivey, 83, Cheyenne, Wyoming

Vicki Ivey, 83, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, has noticed a special resilience in solo agers — including herself. Ivey is part of the Cheyenne Widows and Widowers group, which meets weekly to socialize.

Matt Nager

A new social life began for Vicki Ivey when she walked into the Cheyenne public library in June 2014 for a meeting of the Cheyenne Widows and Widowers group. Her high school sweetheart and husband of 54 years, Dale, had died earlier that year. A friend she’d met at a hospice support meeting suggested the group. Soon the pair were at the center of a bunch of adventurous women.

“People liked being around us because we liked to laugh,” says Ivey, a former beautician and gift shop owner. “I had a Ford Explorer you could fit seven people in. I took them to Estes Park for the weekend. We went to Fort Collins to eat out, and to Snowy Range to see the beautiful trees.”

Ivey has noticed a special resilience in solo agers — including herself. They grieve for lost spouses and marriages that spanned decades. (“When I was alone, I would miss Dale more than anything,” she says. “It took me three years to get over missing him so much.”) At the same time, a lifetime of experience gives them the grit to keep going. “Our generation, we’ve seen everything,” Ivey says. “Us people born during and right after World War II, we’ve seen bad times, we’ve seen sad times and we’ve seen good times. We have the full spectrum of what life’s about. That’s what makes us as strong as we are.”

That grit has helped Ivey through recent uterine cancer treatments, months of recovery, lasting weakness in her hips and a knee problem that makes walking difficult. Ivey’s three children live an hour or two away, in Colorado. It’s a close-knit family. But for now, she’s staying in Cheyenne. “My kids would love if I moved closer to them,” says Ivey. “But they don’t want to push me to move. They know I’m having a lot of fun with my friends here.”

‘People know they can come in and talk’

Leon Christensen, 84, San Diego

San Diego's Leon Christensen, 84, describes himself as a natural loner who enjoys his own company but also likes having friends around.

Philip Cheung

At 65, Leon Christensen crashed to the floor of his apartment. “One minute I was fine; the next it was lights out,” says Christensen, now 84. It was a hemorrhagic stroke: bleeding in the right side of the brain. Never married, the former music producer, computer programmer and handyman had always lived alone. “Nobody found me for four days,” Christensen recalls. Neighbors eventually found him and summoned help. “I was taken to the county morgue at Mercy Hospital in San Diego,” he says. “Luckily, the night attendant noticed I wasn’t dead.”

He regained consciousness a month later in the hospital and slowly recovered over the next year and a half, then lived with a friend before moving to a residence run by the social services agency Serving Seniors San Diego. There, solo aging is the norm. “Almost everybody is living alone,” he says.

Christensen describes himself as a natural loner who enjoys his own company but also likes having friends around. He grew up on a Nebraska farm, then moved to Omaha at age 16. He relocated to San Diego because “it’s paradise. We have fine beaches.” Family is far away. “Most of my relatives are on the East Coast that I haven’t seen in more than 20 years,” he says. “My parents and brother have passed away.”

The stroke left him partially deaf, legally blind and mostly paralyzed. He uses a motorized wheelchair but can still use his left hand. (“I’m a natural lefty,” he says.) A caregiver helps him with shopping, banking and other errands; Serving Seniors San Diego provides meals every day. There’s bingo downstairs, and his neighbors visit often. “When my door is open, people know they can come in and talk,” says. Christensen. “I’m available.”

‘I’m the responsible one now’

Joy Frank-Collins, 50, Columbus, Ohio

Joy Frank-Collins, 50, of Columbus, Ohio, was "starting our second act" with her husband, Ethan, when he passed away in 2023. He left behind a folder of information and advice that gave her the courage to move forward.

Maddie McGarvey

When her husband, Ethan, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in late 2022, Joy Frank-Collins remembers thinking, I cannot be a widow. I don’t know how. Ethan died in September 2023 at age 49 from a rare complication following a bone marrow transplant. “Ethan was determined to be the best cancer patient anybody’s ever seen,” she says. “We literally never expected him to die.”

The couple raised two sons during a nearly 24-year marriage. “Ethan and I were just starting our second act,” Frank-Collins says. “We were sort of empty nesters, with our youngest in college and our older son starting law school.”

It took more than a year to begin processing her grief. “You’re in caregiver mode, fight-or-flight mode. I’m still coming out of that,” she says. But shortly after her husband’s death, Frank-Collins had to take charge of money matters and find a way to pay the bills on her salary alone. Ethan, the primary breadwinner, had taken care of all the family finances. “He was balancing the checkbook up until the day before he went into the intensive care unit,” she says. “I really didn’t know how I’d figure it all out. One of the hardest things about aging alone is that there is no division of responsibilities whatsoever. I’m the responsible one now.”

Inside a folder of income tax documents set up by Ethan, she found a four-page list of information about their accounts, plus advice he had left behind for his family. That advice gave Frank-Collins the courage to move forward — including asking for a raise at work. She got it.