Fabiola Guillen
Fabiola Guillen pulls a black smock over her bright floral blouse and string of pearls. She tidies a container of thintoothed combs, sorts through a pile of hair clips and plugs in an electric razor. A few minutes before 10 a.m. — she’s always on time — “Fabbie,” as she’s known around here, at the Pasatiempo Senior Center, picks up her clipboard and calls out the first name on the sign-up sheet. She greets the woman, Janet, with a big smile. Janet asks for shorter bangs and a trim around her pixielength cut. Guillen pulls a turquoise smock around the woman and grabs her scissors. Then she gets to work, spraying water, combing and snipping.
For the next four hours, Guillen, 70, will serve about 20 seniors, cutting their hair for free, as she does every Wednesday at either the Mary Esther Gonzales Senior Center or Pasatiempo. It’s a lot of standing, especially for a woman who suffers chronic back pain, but Guillen doesn’t mind.
“As long as you’re busy, your ailments aren’t there, so to speak,” she said.
Hair cutting is just one of many acts of service the certified cosmetologist and retired nurse does for members of the community — old and young.
“It’s where a need is and where a passion is,” said Guillen, who credits her career with igniting her interest in volunteerism.
“With nursing, I learned the kinds of people who have needs,” she said. “… You learn compassion. You learn empathy.”
Guillen, selected as one of The New Mexican’s 10 Who Made a Difference for 2018, worked as a registered nurse at what is now Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center for 30 years. She served patients of all ages and backgrounds there — from newborns to those over 90.
For about 15 years, she has chaired the St. Vincent Hospital Auxiliary’s Afghan for Hugs program, in which volunteers like Guillen crochet blankets and hats for all the babies born at the hospital.
She also volunteers at the hospital’s Flu Shot Clinic, administering vaccinations.
Since 2005, Guillen has worked with Bienvenidos, a volunteer division of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, operating a downtown visitor center and assisting tourists.
And when it’s back-to-school time, Guillen heads over to the Villa Teresa Catholic Clinic, where she provides free haircuts to lowincome children.
“Those children can go to their first day of school without looking unkempt,” said Guillen’s younger brother, Bernardo C’ de Baca, who nominated her for the 10 Who Made a Difference award.
“If she can make somebody’s life easier, she will do it,” C’ de Baca said. “That’s just in her nature.”
Guillen said she learned the skill about 13 years ago. When her mother no longer had the energy to visit a salon, Guillen said, she started cutting her mother’s hair. She went on to become a certified cosmetologist in 2005, five years before she retired from nursing. Most of Guillen’s volunteer time is spent styling the elderly. “I’ve got a lot of men,” she said. “… They take two seconds. I tell them, ‘You’ve got five hairs on your head. What do you want me to do with them?’ ”
Her favorite part of the work is “just BS’ing,” she said — having an opportunity to practice Spanish with some of her clients and giving time to people she believes are too often overlooked.
“I don’t think our culture recognizes their [seniors’] wisdom,” she said. “We’re all gonna be there one day, but we don’t always recognize it.” Virginia Soto praised Guillen’s efforts. “She’s very reliable and very good,” said Soto, one of Guillen’s clients since 2010. “She’s very patient. She starts early and she’ll be here till she gets the last one done.”
Some clients pay her with a jar of jelly or insist on giving a dollar, Guillen said.
She uses the money to buy craft supplies to create centerpieces for the dining room at the Mary Esther Gonzales Senior Center — an act she says “perks people up.”
Guillen has been married for 49 years to retired Santa Fe police officer Robert Guillen. The couple have two children and six grandsons.
“You sacrifice so much as a nurse and as a cop,” she said. “We had to work around our jobs to raise our kids.” Her selflessness, she said, largely stems from her upbringing. Guillen was born in La Cienega, where she was raised with her 10 siblings. When she was just 5 or 6 years old, her father died in a car crash. Her oldest sibling was about to graduate from high school at the time, and the youngest had just been born.
Her mother decided to move the family closer to the children’s grandmother in Santa Fe, where they shared a one-bedroom home. Then her brothers went to a home for boys in Albuquerque, Guillen said, so her mother could focus on raising the girls.
Her childhood wasn’t easy, she said, but it made her who she is today.
“You learn to appreciate what you have and understand what other people are going through,” she said, “what their needs are.”