Lucy Medina entered the workforce in 1976 at the age of 49, when most women her age were starting to think about retirement. Fortunately, she didn't have to hunt for a job — it found her. As Medina recalls, "Celso Chavez from the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation called me and asked me if I'd like to run my own business. My youngest son was already a teenager, so I thought to myself, 'Why not give it a try?' "

Legally blind since birth, Medina, now 83, has always liked a challenge. "Throughout my life, I've learned by doing. The first day at the coffee shop I was given $300 as startup money and Phillip Larragoite showed me how to put the filter in the coffee pot. That was all the training they gave me, she says."

After Medina's first week she was able to pay back the money that the DVR fronted her and for the next 27 years, she ran Lucy's Coffee Shop by herself. Medina employed four workers and did all of the cooking.

The business started at the Roundhouse, then went to Mabry Hall in the old Capitol building and later moved to the New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue at the Manuel Lujan building until 2004. That's when she finally closed her business to take care of her husband, Abel, who had broken his ankle.

Lucy's Coffee Shop was a misnomer, given the fact that government employees enjoyed more than a cup of coffee. Medina shared all of the great recipes that her mother taught her — including carne adova, natillas, green chile stew and chicken enchiladas.

In addition to cooking, supervising her employees and mingling with customers, her favorite task was doing the doing the bookkeeping.

"When I was 3 my father taught me how to add, subtract and multiply. He didn't think that I would ever be able to go to school because I was blind, so by the time I was 5 years old I was able to work alongside him in his grocery store," she says.

Lucy Medina was the 10th of 12 children born to Josefita Maes and Alejandro Quintana. She was born in 1926 at the family home at 604 Agua Fría St., where today her nieces Henrietta and Dolores run the Guadalupe Inn. Medina is the last surviving sibling of the family.

She was blinded at birth by a nurse who mistakenly administered the wrong medicine, causing her eyes to blister. She has no vision in her left eye and partial vision in her right eye that enables her to see images up close. According to Medina, her parents were heartbroken that their otherwise healthy daughter was blinded the day that she was born, but held no ill-will toward the nurse. As Medina says, "My father said no one would purposely do that to a baby, and he and my mother forgave her."

Lucy graduated from Lorretto Academy in 1946. She was married to Abel Medina for 61 years — he died a few weeks ago Nov. 1. The couple had five children, 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

In addition to running her coffee shop, Medina has served as the New Mexico state president for the Military Order of Cootie Auxiliary and local president for the Women's Auxiliary of the VFW Post 2951 where her husband, a World War II veteran, was a member. "I memorized all of the rules and regulations for both organizations, so I was able to run the meetings without any difficulty."

Looking back on her life's achievements, Medina says, "I've never thought of myself as being disabled, because I can do everything."

Ana Pacheco is at work on the city of Santa Fe's 400th Anniversary Commemorative issue that will be published in The Santa Fe New Mexican on Feb. 7. Her weekly tribute to our community elders appears every Sunday she can be reached at 505-474-2800.