Dr. Frank T. Lossy

Frank T. Lossy Dr. Frank Lossy passed peacefully at home on May 11, 2020. Frank was born on March 22, 1924 in Budapest Hungary. Later that year he immigrated to the United States with his parents, Eleanora Beck and Sandor Szentikilosi. Frank and his mother were detained at Ellis Island because the U.S. Government had changed the rules while they were at sea, and only Sandor, a chemist and a desired asset for economic growth, was initially allowed entry. After this problem was clear up, the family settled in the South Side of Chicago and changed their name to the easier to pronounce "Lossy". In Chicago, Sandor was a radio personality and was the Socialist President of Hungary in Exile. The family was connected to leftish political organizations, and Frank and his mother traveled with another family to visit Leon Trotsky in Mexico, where they also met Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo. Mr. Rivera even ate a worm to impress the boys on the trip! Frank, then a teenage photography buff, took photos of the visit and then developed them himself in back in Chicago and later sent one to Trotsky to sign and return. This trip led to a life-long affection for Mexico, resulting in several hitch-hiking trips as a teen, and family vacations that only stopped when he was well into his 90's. Frank attended the University of Chicago for undergrad and medical school. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, although he never deployed overseas. Instead he works in hospitals in the US where he watched the miracle of penicillin save wounded soldiers. At that time, penicillin was so valuable that it was recovered from the urine of recovering patients and reused. Dr. Lossy did an internship in Louisiana at Tulane then worked in Bogalousa, Louisiana as a general practitioner for a few years before returning to school for residency in psychiatry at Tulane. He moved to California in 1953 where practiced psychiatry for 65 years. Dr. Lossy was committed to justice and freedom for all. In 1966, he returned to Louisiana to help with the civil right movement, dangerous work that included smuggling another sympathetic doctor out of Baton Rouge, where the doctor was being hunted by Louisiana state troopers. Always the adventurer, he sailed in countless parts of the globe including the Caribbean, Mediterranean, and the Andaman Sea off the coast of Thailand just 6 years ago. He also had a pilot's license and received a SCUBA certification from the early 1960s, when diving techniques were substantially more experimental than now. Dr. Lossy married Rella Lossy in 1956 and they had 2 children, Panna and David. After Rella's death in 1996, he has been lovingly partnered for the last 23 years with Barbara Steinberg and proud Grandfather to Naomi Lossy, Isadora Lossy and Oscar Lossy.