Doug Hairgrove and Warren “Woody” Wood were together for 65 years. They met in college in 1959, worked side by side for more than three decades at a Southern California junior high school and got married in 2008 at their desert home in Palm Springs, California.
When it came time to downsize a few years ago, they initially moved to a condo. “It was nice, but it was the way many of the condos are built here — we had very little contact with others,” says Hairgrove, 84.
They longed for a place that offered social amenities like movie nights, crafts classes and communal dinners, but moving to a conventional retirement home “never crossed our mind.” They had heard stories of LGBTQ people being harassed and mistreated in traditional facilities, Hairgrove says. “We wanted to live with other gay folks.”
The couple found what they were looking for in November 2023, settling at Living Out Palm Springs, a newly opened apartment community for LGBTQ+ people and their allies ages 55 and up. Wood died May 27, at the age of 85. But he was able to live his last several months in a community of peers. […]
Click here to read the full piece. This story was originally published by AARP on June 14, 2024.
