Behind Each Letter, a Life

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:

“Sinceramente, Frank 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.”

Every time he made a point, Ramirez gently grabbed my arm or poked me, his warm and expressive brown eyes peering over the tops of gold-rimmed specs. He said he couldn’t wait to show me the history of his life in photos, then he squeezed my arm and led me into his den.

The first thing to catch my eye was the large glass case with Ramirez’s Purple Heart and other medals, along with news clippings about the war.

“Patton would come up to the front lines, and he could speak Spanish,” Ramirez told me. “You know, he was from here in San Gabriel.”

The Battle of the Bulge was one of the bloodiest confrontations of World War II, with 19,000 Americans killed while countering Hitler’s last-ditch attempt to turn back the Allied advance. Ramirez, fighting with the 5th Infantry Division, remembers the freezing cold as well as thoughts of his wife and two children back home in L.A.

“The Germans had us pinned down with machine guns,” Ramirez said, crouching to show his position and tapping me on the arm to make sure I was paying attention. He’s diabetic and walks with a stoop, but is in pretty good shape otherwise. “I didn’t even know I’d been shot. One of the guys tells me, ‘Hey, Frank, you’re bleeding.’ ”

It was a minor wound to his forearm, but enough to get him shipped to Paris and then England for treatment. When he got back to the front lines, the war was just about over.

A Cal-Vet loan got Ramirez into the house, which had a sticker price of $10,000. He worked with his brother George at Alhambra Patio for years, and then, with no experience and going on nothing more than a whim, he opened Panchito’s in 1956.

“My father was a stonemason and he always told me, ‘Whatever you do in life, do it your best,’ and that’s what I did,” Ramirez said, showing me photos of the restaurant where he worked 14-hour days and was known to generations of loyal customers as “Mr. Panchito,” the genial gent in traditional Mexican garb.

“You should have tasted the beef. It was aged for two to four days and marinated in a blend of 18 ingredients. We were known for our steaks.”

He became known as a guy who could be tapped to join service groups like the Kiwanis and serve on this commission or that. He was also known to write checks and lead fundraisers for everything from muscular dystrophy to Salesian schools. Ramirez admired President Kennedy and, in particular, Ronald Reagan, who as governor appointed Ramirez to the commission of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historical Monument.

“I think he’s a very proud man,” Cindy Morales said of her father. “He really does love that feeling of giving.”

At one time Ramirez had 60 restaurant employees, but rising overhead costs hit hard, and Ramirez said business slumped when the Asian population of San Gabriel grew and the white population decreased. Panchito’s, which closed in 1993, is now a Chinese restaurant.

Back when he was trying to keep Panchito’s open, Ramirez borrowed against his home, and now, 60 years after moving in, he owes more than $100,000 on the house he bought for $10,000. After paying the monthly mortgage, there’s not much left of the $2,000 Social Security check, but even at that, he still makes donations to his favorite causes.

“He’s a giver,” said Margaret Ramirez, seated near a plaque that reads, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

“Money is important,” she added, casting an eye around a room that could maybe use some fresh paint. “But it’s not our God.”

“You know what I think?” Ramirez asked, telling me he doesn’t think there are enough rehab programs and other services for the skid row population he wrote to me about. “I’d like to donate $10. If everybody else in Los Angeles did the same thing, don’t you think that could make a big difference?”

He led me out back to the garage, where he keeps more memories stowed. His backyard has an arbor covered with a grapevine snipped from his restaurant, a vine that originated at the San Gabriel Mission, established in 1771.

Ramirez didn’t have big plans for the rest of the day, but in the house, I noticed he had already penned four more pages of a follow-up letter to me. It was filled with more memories, the story of a small garden, well-kept.

“That’s part of history,” Ramirez said, “and if I don’t write it down, it’s gone.”

Reach the columnist at steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at latimes.com/lopez