Dr. Paul Saffo; Promoted Botanic Gardens

Dr. Paul Saffo, 88, South Bay surgeon who promoted botanic gardens. A native of Bridgeport, Conn., Saffo was educated at Catholic University, Yale Medical School and Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia. After practicing in San Francisco, he settled in Los Angeles in 1941. Saffo helped establish Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital and Centinela Hospital and was chief of staff and a trustee of the Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in Hawthorne. A charter member of the South Coast Botanic Garden, Saffo served as its president from 1972 to 1975. He also served on the board of governors of the Los Angeles County Arboreta and Botanic Gardens Commission, which oversees the county’s three gardens--South Bay, the Arboretum in Arcadia and Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge. Saffo earned the Service to Mankind award from the Del Amo Sertoma Club in 1975. On Feb. 19 in Rolling Hills of lung cancer.