all the single older ladies, all the single older ladies...

April 1, 2019 1:40 AM

Please give me examples of successful interesting women who were single in the last quarter of their lives.

They can be people you know or famous women. If they aren't/weren't hugely wealthy all the better but movie stars etc are fair game.
For the purposes of this question I'm looking for women who did not live with a partner after the age of 55.

posted by nantucket to Grab Bag (24 answers total)

Penelope Fitzgerald's husband died when she was 60; her literary career began taking off around the same time, and she lived without a partner until her death in 2000 at the age of 83.
posted by terretu at 1:57 AM on April 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Diana Athill.
posted by kariebookish at 4:09 AM on April 1, 2019

Louise Bourgeois. I'm not an expert - so for all I know she had other partners - but Wikipedia says her husband died in 1973. She died in 2010 (making art till the very end!)
posted by PistachioRoux at 4:46 AM on April 1, 2019

Joan Didion lost her husband in 2003 and her daughter the same year. She wrote highly acclaimed books about both losses.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:54 AM on April 1, 2019

I'm not sure if this quite fits what you're looking for, but I remember being struck by something that Joani Blank (sex educator who started Good Vibrations in the 70s) wrote on Facebook shortly after being diagnosed with a very fast-moving type of cancer: I am also now freed of the need to try to create a meaningful relationship with a partner as a core aspect of my life. Clearly this sort of meaningful relationship is unlikely to develop for someone who is all but certain to die very soon. However, while in the past, not having a core primary relationship has been a source of much disappointment and sadness for me, my new circumstances remove that struggle from my life, and I welcome the freedom this brings as an opportunity to put all of my energy into enjoying my life.

While she clearly didn't sit around doing nothing, it feels meaningful to me to know that she struggled with that disappointment and sadness while doing everything she did.
posted by needs more cowbell at 6:03 AM on April 1, 2019 [4 favorites]

Eliza Schuyler Hamilton famously live[d] another 50 years.
posted by Betelgeuse at 6:19 AM on April 1, 2019 [3 favorites]

Louise Nevelson was single for most of her life and began making some of her most ambitious work in her 70s.
posted by torridly at 6:49 AM on April 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Joan Rivers.
posted by General Malaise at 6:54 AM on April 1, 2019

I believe Annie Proulx has been single or living alone for a long time. She was (by my standards) successful and interesting way before she became high profile and started making money in her 50s.
posted by BibiRose at 7:00 AM on April 1, 2019

My maternal grandmother. She had seven children before her husband died young; two of them were still at home when he died, and she ran the farm for a few decades after that, despite being on crutches from a couple of horse-riding injuries when she was young. My favourite story about this tough, smart old lady:

Before her husband died, someone convinced him that he should put the farm in trust in his will, instead of giving it straight to her. National Trust was chosen as the trustee. Every year, they'd send her a letter of instruction detailing the crops she must plant and the animals she must raise. Every year, she'd ignore the letter and run the farm the way she wanted to. She was well-read, savvy, and comfortable with her decisions.

After a few years of this, National Trust sent her a letter saying that they were going to pay her a visit to find out why she wasn't following their instructions. On the appointed day, a couple of men came down the long driveway to the farmhouse. She met them with a shotgun and told them exactly why they weren't welcome back.

After that, they stopped sending letters of instruction.

There are more stories, but they all come back to the same themes. She didn't worry too much about authority when she knew her rights, whether or not those rights were written down. She didn't let adversity or disapproval or pain stop her. She did things her way. I don't know if that's the kind of success you're looking for, but I admire her.
posted by clawsoon at 7:00 AM on April 1, 2019 [9 favorites]

Edna Ferber lived alone all of her life, and wrote wonderfully throughout.

(She also hated Alexander Woollcott with every fiber of her being, and I suspect she didn't have a lot of time for the rest of the Algonquin Round Table, which A) shows her excellent taste and B) makes her a personal hero of mine.)
posted by kalimac at 7:29 AM on April 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

M.V. Hughes became a successful author in her 60s and 70s after she was widowed in 1918.
posted by JanetLand at 7:47 AM on April 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Mavis Gallant. This Guardian profile is worth reading but I'll just quote a bit:

Just as in her 20s she gave herself two years to prove she could be a writer, so in her 30s she promised that she would give herself two years to see if she could live with someone else. She left almost on the day. "I went to stay on a farm outside Salzburg and every morning I woke up and thought 'I'm free.'" She hardly wrote at all during the two years. "You have to stop and think – 'Oh I must get the bread for supper' – I didn't even eat bread because I didn't want to get fat! I didn't like being half a person with half of another person attached. It wasn't his fault, he didn't do anything wrong, anything mean or nasty. As a couple you only ever see other couples. It was so boring, I was so bored," she says with feeling. "I was going out like a light. But if everyone was like me the human race would run out."
Another article quotes her quoting Boris Pasternak: "Only personal independence matters."
posted by trotzdem_kunst at 7:53 AM on April 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Not a famous person, but my great grandmother was married three times, the last time to a wonderful man with whom she had a strong relationship. He died when they were in their early 60s and she lived alone until she died at 94. When she was dying, she told me that her favourite times in her life were her 70s onward, because she was able to live her life for herself and herself only. Her children were grown and didn't need her active support. She was unmarried. She had dogs, always, and a close group of female friends with whom she went on trips and outings. She lived totally for herself and was hugely content with it.
posted by hepta at 8:03 AM on April 1, 2019 [5 favorites]

My grandmother and her husband were both born in 1894, and immigrated (separately; they met here) from Russia to the USA in 1914. He lived about another 30 years (dying of a heart attack in 1945 at age 51), and she lived alone for another 45 years. He left her in a good position in terms of wealth, and her three sons managed her money well, so that she was always comfortable without working after his death. She wasn't famous, but she was cultured, intelligent, fluent in three different languages and conversant in a couple of others, and she travelled all over the world. I remember her fondly.
posted by ubiquity at 8:47 AM on April 1, 2019 [4 favorites]

Wasn't Georgia O'Keefe single for 40ish years after her husband died?
posted by salvia at 8:48 AM on April 1, 2019

After her one disastrous marriage, Sarah Bernhardt remained single the rest of her life. She continued acting and touring until the end, even after having her leg amputated in 1915.

(I love the grandmother/great-grandmother stories! We should collect them!)
posted by orrnyereg at 8:51 AM on April 1, 2019

Julia Child's husband Paul moved into a nursing home for five years before his death, a decade before hers. Those were the years she made most of those wonderful series with other chefs, and spent a lot of time traveling with friends and her biographer (also a friend). I don't believe there's any indication she was anything but single during that time. That was more of an eighth of her life than a quarter, but she didn't really slow down any more than her health absolutely forced her to.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:24 AM on April 1, 2019

Not famous: one of my closest friends is a woman who is in her late sixties and has been divorced for about 10 years. Her children are grown. She is one of the happiest people I know, and she has a really full life.

Honestly, her life is, for me, a testament and model of how building strong relationships and embedding oneself in community is the best investment in a happy old age. She bought her house with a (platonic) friend in the 1980s - it's a Craftsman bungalow in a great neighborhood here in Seattle. She wouldn't have been able to afford it on her own but bought her friend out of his part when she married her (now ex-) husband. Not only has it become her retirement plan (this is Seattle), but it's the literal home base for her community.

When she and her husband separated, she started 1. rescuing dogs and 2. having international homestays from around the world. She's been doing this for years, and her house is always full of dogs and friends and temporary roommates from around the world. She regularly has friends over for dinner with everyone and we have long conversations about cultural differences, religion, politics, whatever.

For the last 10 years, she has been doing work in her day job that embedded her in another community, which is how we met, and I see how she carefully cultivates all kinds of relationships, from professional colleagues to friendly acquaintances to dear friends. She's about to retire and is a little nervous about that, but I can tell she'll be fine.

She gives me a ton of hope for my own future.
posted by lunasol at 12:15 PM on April 1, 2019 [8 favorites]

The Canadian artist Emily Carr never married, though she apparently lived with her sister in her later years due to her declining health. Her work didn't get serious traction until her 50s and now the most(?) well-known art school in Canada is named after her.

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (the one behind the Infinity Mirrors rooms and giant polka-dot pumpkins) has just turned 90, so who knows, but she doesn't seem to have had any serious romances after her 40s. She's really remarkable, especially considering the sexual and avant garde (to me, someone who knows nothing about art) nature of her work and her upbringing within conservative Japanese culture.
posted by miss_kitty_fantastico at 12:48 PM on April 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Eleanor Roosevelt?
posted by DrAstroZoom at 2:29 PM on April 1, 2019

Patti Smith?
posted by eviemath at 2:37 PM on April 1, 2019

Lillian Moller Gilbreth of Cheaper By The Dozen fame.
posted by kitten magic at 5:08 PM on April 1, 2019

Mefi favorite Ann Richards had a hell of a last quarter of her life after her divorce.
posted by frecklefaerie at 6:59 PM on April 1, 2019 [1 favorite]