SOURCE: Springer, Marlene. “As We Shall Be: May Sarton and Aging.” Frontiers 5, no. 3 (fall 1980): 46-49.

In the following essay, Springer praises Sarton's dignified and sensitive treatment of the elderly in her work.

A university recently spent $77,000 to do a survey designed to assess the needs of the elderly in its state.¹ After two years of extensive interviews, the team discovered that the problems of the elderly were (in this order): income, health care, transportation, crime, isolation, nutrition, housing, activity, employment, age discrimination, and education—$77,000 to discover problems that cover most of the ills we all are heir to, with no solutions sought, or offered. Obviously such studies cannot be discounted, and they deserve the respect their ability to effect social change earns. However, I could not help but ruefully observe that a quick reading of Stephen Crane's Maggie, Tillie Olsen's Tell Me a Riddle, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House...