The authors sought to determine differences by gender among elderly persons who die by suicide on demographic characteristics, location of suicide, method, previous suicidality, & precipitant stressors. Relative to elderly female suicides, they found that elderly males characteristically use guns, are single, live in rural areas, have a lower frequency of previous attempts, & feature physical illness & financial difficulty as precipitants significantly more often than females, who more commonly have a mental illness. (49 refs)