For 60 of his 84 years, Frank Ramirez has lived on West Broadway in San Gabriel, just past the old mission in the center of the historic district. I drove there Friday morning to answer, in person, a letter he had written to me.
Sometimes it feels as though I'm losing ground in responding to readers who write or call. On the holiday weekend, it seemed appropriate to offer all those people both an apology and a thank-you, as well as to highlight one of many who took the time to write.
In Ramirez's letter, which I drew randomly from a box, he told me a few things about himself. He fought under Gen. George S. Patton and was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge on Christmas Eve in 1944. He ran Panchito's restaurant in San Gabriel for 37 years and won "hundreds of awards!" And he was very disturbed by the tales of suffering in my series on downtown L.A.'s skid row.
"Hoping to hear from you," he wrote in longhand on lined paper, signing his letter:
"\o7Sinceramente, \f7Frank W. Ramirez."
Ramirez answered the door of the little GI stucco home he bought after World War II, offered a big handshake and a bigger smile, and led me directly to the kitchen table where he spends hours a day writing letters and organizing the history of his life. Queenie the cat and Baby Dolly the Chihuahua were at his feet, along with stacks of folders and envelopes.
He showed me a copy of the letter he had written to me, but it wasn't a photocopy. Ramirez doesn't have a computer or a copy or fax machine. When he writes a letter to the president of the United States to complain about the rising cost of medical care for people on fixed incomes, or a letter to anyone else for that matter, Ramirez then pens a second copy for his personal files.
"That's why it takes up so much time," said Margaret, his wife of 66 years. "It's late sometimes when I go to bed, and he's still here writing."
They met on Olvera Street, by the way, a couple of local kids, born and raised.
"He was clean and not fancy," Margaret said when I asked how Frank managed to sweep her off her feet. "I didn't trust boys. They'd say, 'Prove how much you love me,' but they didn't know who they were dealing with."
Sixty-six years, five children, 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren later, they're still happy to be together.
"Never argue," Ramirez advised me out of his wife's presence. "That's the key, because nobody ever wins an argument."
