1 post tagged “widowed”

View other items tagged “widowed:” Photos, Audio, Videos, Books or Links. View “widowed” on Vox.

The Class of 1960 (Mine)

Mar 25, 2008
1 comment

This past summer, I turned sixty-five, as of course did all of my high school classmates. There was a reunion, and a memory book, and some sort of survey study as well.

One thing that struck me is that, of the class of 830 graduates, it was reported that 72 are known to have passed away. That is about nine percent, a fairly significant portion. Quite a few, especially from a relatively affluent town.

A related but separate survey, based of course on a sample, also indicated that nine percent had been widowed (12% of the females said so, as did 4% of the men).

I was interested I guess in part because my wife, Barbara, died at just age 60 of "natural causes:" a cancer, and not an accident. And not a war.

Of the men, half are retired.

Average happiness (on a scale of zero to ten) was 8.

Politically, while a plurality was "the same," women tended to have become "more liberal," and males "more conservative" with the passage of these years. Most men indicated they are now Republicans, but most of the women called themselves Democrats.

So it is with the passage of time.