Meet Pierce County’s ‘Nice Old Ladies,’ who stick together through good and bad
On the second Friday of every month, a group of women gather at a different restaurant around Pierce County for a meal, a snack or a coffee.
The group’s average age is around 65. They greet each other with big hugs, sporting wide smiles and gray hair – and you’re welcome to join them. They don’t care about your race, political affiliation or socioeconomic background. The only requirement: to be a “Nice Old Lady” and join other “Nice Old Ladies” to make friends.
The group is the brainchild of University Place resident Tamara Sharp, who first posted about the group about a year ago when she realized in her retirement that she was too busy while she was working and raising a child to make friends.
“I said, ‘So, what can I do? I can sit here and piss and moan and feel lonely, or I can take a chance,’” Sharp told The News Tribune.
So she took that chance and posted on Nextdoor. One year later, the Nice Old Ladies – who also sometimes call themselves the NOLs – are a thriving group, a place for older women to meet like-minded people and make friends who will help each other in good times and bad ones.
Sharp said anywhere from 15 to 30 women have been showing up to the monthly events, and members of the group have started to branch off into smaller groups with people they get along with best.
Ali Huntsman, a member of the group who retired about 10 years ago, said she realized after spending 30 years in the military that almost all her friends are men. Joining the group has helped her meet new people from a variety of backgrounds, she said.
“I just thought, the older I got, the guys didn’t get as old as I did as quick,” Huntsman told The News Tribune.
Huntsman said few of the group’s members still have living spouses, and it’s that life experience that has been valuable for its members.
“Very few of us have husbands – whether we want them or not,” she joked.
The group and its regular meetings have provided an opportunity for NOLs to lean on each other in hard times, to ask for advice on matters that kids or grandchildren can’t necessarily advise on, Sharp said. Maybe someone recently lost a partner and has to grapple with the reality of living alone after spending decades splitting chores and household responsibilities with someone. Or someone who recently got a cancer diagnosis, who wants to know the best type of tea to ease the nausea that comes with chemotherapy.
“Your kids are nice, but they’re in a whole different space in their life. They’re not thinking about the fact that you don’t have working hips anymore, and so the four steps that it takes to get up into your house are no longer just four steps – it’s a mountain,” Sharp said. “People that are going to understand what you’re going through are other old ladies who are going through the same thing.”
Dawn Butcher, who has been attending meetings of the Nice Old Ladies since the beginning, said the company of the friends she has made through the group has helped her get back on her feet after her husband passed.
“You get to a point in life where you didn’t think you were going to get,” Butcher told The News Tribune. “It never occurred to me that I would be alone.”
The group meets once a month, on the second Friday of every month. Interested attendees can look out for posts about the next meeting on nextdoor.com from Tamara Sharp.
This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 9:00 AM.
