Frank Ernest Batista

Frank was born July 10, 1937, the 8th son of Franceska and Ivan Batista. He came from a small village in Slovenia called Mala Bukovica. When it was time to join the Yugoslavian army he left for Italy where he lived in a refugee camp for about 18 months and chose to go to Toronto, Canada, where many of his friends from Slovenia were living. He would also be near his brother Rudi, who lived in Pennsylvania. He lived in Toronto for 14 years and worked at the Royal York hotel until he decided he had enough of the cold winters and headed for LA where his cousin Paul lived. Before that happened, however, he went back home for a three week vacation. On his last week there he met Draga. They wrote to each other for 2 years and in 1970 Draga came to Los Angeles where Frank had immigrated to. They first lived in City Terrace where Frank built their first home. In 1974, their first daughter, Alexandra, was born. In 1976 they decided to move to San Gabriel. In October of that same year, Wendy was born, then Michael in 1978. Frank was always a professional waiter at fine dining restaurants and truly loved his work. In the 1980’s he began investing in real estate. Frank’s favorite hobby was going to the Santa Anita Race track. His children went with him so often that by the age of ten they were betting the long shots to win. Frank also enjoyed the outdoors and took the kids to the local mountains and fishing at the beaches on weekends.

At the young age of 53, Frank suffered his first stroke which forced him into retirement. Over the years he suffered another stroke and also a heart attack. On March 6, 2017 Frank died peacefully from complications of pneumonia, diabetes and a heart attack while surrounded by his wife Draga, of 46 years, and his 3 children.

He lived a long and happy life surrounded by love from his 6 grandchildren, Andrej, Anja, Alexa, Gia, Gavin and Lucas. And he was well taken care of by his loving wife Draga all those years.