Among Their Peers, They’re Senior to Everyone

They could have named it “Hank and Josie Day” at Olvera Street on Sunday.

Technically, it was “The Day of the Senior Citizens,” but two senior citizens in particular, Henry (Hank) Bravo, 64, and Josefina (Josie) Flores, 80, were honored as Gran Hidalgo and Gran Dama, the great gentleman and great lady among senior citizen volunteers in Los Angeles city and county, as part of Senior Citizens Month.

Flores, who began her volunteer work 12 years ago when her husband died, has helped crippled elderly patients at County-USC Medical Center attend 8 a.m. Mass, has spurred the growth of El Sereno and Lincoln Park senior citizens’ clubs, and performed volunteer work at a Lincoln Park convalescent home--often helping out people younger than she. But it is her dancing with a folklorico group, she says, that keeps her young,

The elderly whom she helps “always think I am younger, maybe because I’m always on the go,” said Flores, one of 11 children who came from Mexico with their parents in a boxcar.

Bravo began his volunteer work in 1946, and worked at both the Boyle Heights and Monterey Park Boys Clubs, teaching boxing and photography to youngsters. Now he is part of a city-county senior abuse program teaching workshops on protection for seniors, and instructing young people about respecting their elders. “I reach the kids,” he said. “I rap with people.”

About 400 people, many of them seniors--including 104-year-old Josefina Miranda in the front row--applauded the couple for their dedication and efforts, before enjoying an afternoon of mariachi music and a performance by an East Los Angeles senior citizens’ dance group.