SUNDAY STORY -- Senior and seeing someone

Jennifer Kho

It was just before Christmas when she saw him from across the room at

the Costa Mesa Senior Center.

He was dressed as Santa Claus.

That was the beginning of a happy relationship, although neither

Dorothy Stephenson nor Hal Schumacher realized it at the time.

“He had long hair for the part,” Stephenson said, who has been dating

Schumacher for more than two years. “A month later, he was standing at

the [senior center lunch room] door and I was at this table. He had

shaven, and I didn’t know him. He asked if he could take me home, and I

said, ‘No, I can get a bus.’ The third time he asked, I said OK, and

we’ve been seeing each other ever since. Of course, we weren’t really

dating until six months later.”

The first date included dinner and a movie on a Saturday night. Now,

the two seniors go out together nearly every Saturday night and come to

the senior center to eat lunch together every day.

“We go on day trips together,” Schumacher said. “We’ve been to the

Getty, a car museum in Simi Valley and the Laurence Welk Show once. We’re

compatible.”

The dating climate may be difficult for many singles out there, but

Stephenson and Schumacher are just one of many couples who have paired

off after meeting at the senior center. Aviva Goelman, the center’s

executive director, said the center has at least seven couples this year.

“The senior center is not just a place to eat. Seniors come to

socialize and if they do meet someone, it’s a plus. It’s not like going

to a bar or getting set up, but sometimes it just happens,” she said.

“Some couples are fortunate to meet a companion to travel with, to share

a movie with, to walk along the beach with, to garden with or to just

share a quiet lunch or dinner with. For every couple this happens to,

loneliness is gone. There is nothing that can compare with the undying

friendship of one senior for another.”

FINDING COMPANIONSHIP

Seniors at the center meet eating lunch, playing pool, taking classes

or taking trips.

And they are looking for different kinds of companionship.

Stephenson and Schumacher said their relationship has included no talk

of marriage.

“I don’t think I want to get married again,” said Stephenson, who

added that she just likes being with Schumacher. “He’s nice to me,

although he teases everybody else. I asked him once why he liked me and

he said, ‘You’re a nice lady.’ And he loves my grandchildren. He gives me

something to do.”

Goelman said the two take care of each other.

“He makes sure she gets her proper lunch, and he’s always holding her

hand, putting his arms around her waist or stroking her cheek,” she said.

“He’s crazy about her. He buys her cookies and takes candy to her

grandchildren. I think she has been a good influence on him, too, because

he’s lost weight. She makes sure he gets good nutrition. I think they’re

sweet.”

Katherine and Albert Dixon, who will be celebrating their first

anniversary this month, are another story.

“I met him eating at the same table with him and his wife, who died

more than two years ago,” said Katherine Dixon, 81. “A year after she

died, he called and asked me to have dinner with him. I said, ‘I can’t go

with you, you’re married,’ because I hadn’t heard that she had passed

away. Later, he said that if he had asked at the senior center I would

probably have slapped him. I would’ve. But I said OK, and we just kept

going out until we got married.”

Their first date was at Norm’s Restaurant, which is still one of their

favorite places to eat, she said.

They each had different reasons for accepting companionship and

falling in love.

“She’s good looking,” said Albert Dixon, 84.

“He didn’t want to take care of himself,” Katherine Dixon joked.

“He couldn’t wait too long because he hates cooking, and she’s a good

cook,” teased Louise Kanold, a senior at the table who added that her

husband died two years ago and she is not currently dating anyone. “I

think it’s wonderful when a couple can find each other and have

companionship at our ages and don’t have to be alone anymore.”

Katherine Dixon, whose husband had died 11 years before her new

marriage, said she hadn’t wanted to live alone anymore.

“We wanted companionship in our old age,” she said. “We even got a

little dog we named Happy. Albert seemed to be a joking person, and it

seemed like he was always nice to people. There was some attraction for

me, and I like it that he is good natured.”

They do a lot together, Albert Dixon said.

“I watch TV and so does she,” he said. “She does gardening, and I sit

there and watch her. And we eat together all the time.”

MAKING CLOSE FRIENDS

Another pair, Joan Ellis and Chuck Maynard, spend a lot of their time

together but are not dating.

“We are very close friends,” Ellis said. “We met about six months go,

and we have lunch together almost every day and do things outside the

center like movies and appointments. But we’re not a romantic couple at

this point.”

They met at the center when Maynard asked Ellis, who was volunteering

at the front desk, to go on a walk with him. Ellis said she didn’t walk,

and they went to the movies instead.

Ellis and Maynard said they have common interests and enjoy each

other’s company.

“I like her intelligence and beauty and our conversations,” Maynard

said.

Ellis said Maynard is a gentleman who is well-educated and

interesting.

“There’s just a lot of companionship between us,” Ellis said. “It’s

good to be friends and, of course, friends do turn into other things

too.”