Elders' advocate,
family activist Elsie Frank dies
By Gloria Negri,
boston.com from the Web, August 9, 2005
Boston -- Elsie (Golush) Frank
-- a passionate champion for senior citizens whose counsel was sought by
governors, mayors, and political and business leaders -- died of cancer Sunday
in Brigham and Women's Hospital. She was 92.
''For a period of time, Elsie was the most influential person in Massachusetts
related to issues and concerns of older Americans," said Franklin P. Ollivierre,
former state elder affairs secretary and president of the Massachusetts
Association of Older Americans. ''She was trusted and respected, two words
you would associate with Elsie."
Mrs. Frank blossomed as a public figure and speaker after helping her son, US
Representative Barney Frank, win a hard-fought reelection campaign for Congress
in 1982, following the Newton Democrat's first term. She saw the political
arena as a place to serve the public good, and she raised her children to
believe the same.
Another of them -- Ann Lewis of Chevy Chase, Md. -- is a Democratic strategist
and adviser to Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.
While Mrs. Frank was most closely identified with concerns of older Americans,
Ollivierre said, she was also actively involved in issues important to families
and children, including housing and education. ''A lot of people thought
Elsie was just about the elderly," Ollivierre said. ''But she cared about
all issues of human beings. . . . She would say: 'I'm a mother and a
grandmother. I care.' "
Mrs. Frank was a feisty activist. In 1994, when she joined Attorney
General Scott Harshbarger at a conference on crimes against the elderly, she was
blunt.
''You have lonely, vulnerable people who are so happy to hear a soothing voice
on the telephone that they would buy just about anything," she said, describing
the con artists as ''snake oil salesmen." She also told the group:
''I can't abide a woman afraid to go get some milk because some punk is going to
knock her down for her dollar."
Mrs. Frank maintained her spirited advocacy during her years as a member of the
Massachusetts Association of Older Americans, as the group's president in the
1980s and '90s, and, later, as its president emeritus. During her
presidency of the group, Ollivierre said, Mrs. Frank visited almost every
community in the Commonwealth. In the mid-1990s, Ollivierre said, Mrs.
Frank was instrumental in the passage of a law that paved the way for
construction of assisted-living facilities.
Ollivierre recalled another occasion, in 1995, when William F. Weld was
reelected as governor and wanted to meet with Mrs. Frank. ''There was just
the governor, Elsie, and me, and he asked her, what did she think was the most
important issue facing seniors at the time?" he said. She answered that
the state needed Aging Services Access Points, to provide seniors with
''one-stop shopping," a place where they could go with questions about issues
such as housing and nursing care. Now there are about two-dozen such
outlets.
She was a delegate in 1995 to President Clinton's White House Conference on
Aging.
For her work on behalf of seniors, she received honorary degrees from the
University of Massachusetts Gerontology Center and Bridgewater State College.
''She really was a breaker of stereotypes," Barney Frank told the Associated
Press. ''She started a third career as a political activist at the age of
70. She had never made a speech, but she got involved. That was
really important to older people -- there she was, without a college education,
and she was so effective as an activist."
Mrs. Frank was born in Bayonne, N.J., the fifth of sixth children. Both
her parents died within a few months of each other when she was 12. She
was raised by an older sister. Though she was salutatorian of her 1929
class at Bayonne High School, her family said, she could not afford to attend
college. She became a legal secretary. In 1936, she married
businessman Samuel Frank and spent the next few decades as a homemaker.
Though she had done no formal political work during those years, her family
said, she and her husband were loyal Democrats, active in local Jewish causes in
Bayonne, and encouraged their children to work for civil rights.
After her husband died of a heart attack in 1960, Mrs. Frank went back to work
as a legal secretary with a New York law firm.
In January 1973, she moved to Boston to be near her children and worked for the
law firm of Morgan, Brown, & Joy. She retired at 69 in 1982 to work with
the rest of the family on her son's reelection campaign.
Her career as an advocate for the elderly, according to a family member, began
after she was featured in a television commercial for her son's 1982 campaign.
In the commercial, she spoke while sitting in an overstuffed chair in her Back
Bay apartment, saying that she had just retired and was concerned about the
future of Social Security and Medicare.
At the end of the commercial, Mrs. Frank says she believes Barney Frank would do
right by seniors ''because he is my son."
After that, according to Dan Payne of Newton, a Democratic media consultant who
made the commercial, everywhere Mrs. Frank went, people called to her:
''Hi, Elsie!" Even at her son's campaign stops last fall, Payne said,
''Elsie was working the room like Barney."
Until her illness, her son said, Mrs. Frank lived independently. Though as
a child she had ridden around in a horse and buggy, her son said, she was
up-to-date and skilled at downloading e-mail.
In addition to her son and daughter, Mrs. Frank leaves another daughter, Doris
Breay of Newton; another son, David of Arlington, Va.; six grandchildren; and
three great-grandchildren.
Burial will be today in Woodbridge, N.J. A memorial service will be held
later.
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