Seniors reflect on aging in Northern New Mexico

Madrid, 78, a widow and native New Yorker who has lived in Northern New Mexico for 40 years, said it was a “big shock” to suddenly find herself a senior citizen.

“I’m in a walker now and all that kind of stuff,” said Madrid, whose wit and mental acuity doesn’t match her physical limitations.

As a resident of rural New Mexico, Madrid said her contact with the outside world is “sort of minimal.”

“I talk to the dog a lot,” she joked, adding she is an artist who likes to be alone but has company about once a week, including from her son, who brings in firewood and does other chores when he visits.

Madrid, who receives home-delivered meals through Rio Arriba County’s senior services program, said delivery driver Carey Sims, who grew up in the village, is a godsend. During a recent delivery trip, Sims hauled Madrid’s trash bin from the highway to her house and fed her wood stove.

“He’s wonderful,” said Madrid, who has known Sims since he was an infant. “He watches out for everybody.”

Madrid, a product of the hippie generation, said she’s low income but doesn’t qualify for certain government services because she has a little bit of savings in the bank for an emergency, emphasizing the need for programs for elderly New Mexicans in her financial situation.

“That makes me ineligible for any programs at all,” she said. “I can’t get winterization. I can’t get health care or anything like that. And if it gets to the point where I can’t take care of myself, I would just have to spend that money for assisted living or something, which it would last like four months and then I could get Medicaid and, as my dear friend puts it, live in an elderly slum.”

‘Poor old guy living in Santa Fe’

George “Mike” Polillo has always learned to live on a small amount of money.

It’s no different now that he’s a senior.

“I live on just my VA pension” of about $1,400 a month, said Polillo, 74, of Santa Fe, referring to benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He wouldn’t be able to live in the city without a federal housing aid voucher to help cover his rent, he added.

The elderly need to either be wealthy or earn an income low enough to qualify for assistance to survive in their retirement years, Polillo said.

“In some ways, being very low-income, you get some benefits you wouldn’t get if you had a little more money,” he said. “You either need to be very broke — not too broke, but kinda broke — or you need some money.”

The housing aid and veteran pension are “what kept me from being on the streets, literally,” he said.

Polillo, who hasn’t owned a vehicle in 20 years, saves money by using public transit, including city shuttle services for seniors.

He is also a regular at the Mary Esther Gonzales Senior Center, which serves lunch for seniors on weekdays for a “suggested donation” of $1.50 per meal.

But he worries about the rising costs of housing.

His rent payment at the 55-and-over apartment building where he lives has increased from $946 a month to $1,271. Fortunately, aid from the Santa Fe County Housing Authority was able to cover the increase this year.

Polillo he fears, however, if his rent continues to rise, his out-of-pocket costs will, too.

“There will be a point reached where the county housing voucher can no longer keep up, and it’s going to be coming out of my pocket,” he said.

“With a fixed income, I’m going to be a poor old guy living in Santa Fe with less and less money,” he added. “... So, can I stay in Santa Fe in five years? I don’t know.”

‘I’m here because I love it’

Willow Allen intends to die in Northern New Mexico.

“The end, for me, will be here. That’s what I would like,” she said one recent afternoon over lunch at the city-run senior center in Las Vegas, N.M.

The 77-year-old moved to the area about 26 years ago in the middle of a decadeslong career as a dental hygienist. She purchased a house in Las Vegas about five years later, and she still loves living in the community.

Allen has retired from her career but owns and operates Happenstance, a downtown thrift store she opens twice a week.

As she grew older, she once considered moving to an assisted living facility in Tulsa, Okla., where her daughter lives. She used to live there, too. She could use the help such a center would provide, she said, but she wasn’t willing to put up with “the trade-off” of leaving her home in New Mexico.

“I’m here because I love it,” Allen said.

But for many seniors in San Miguel County, the past few years have felt like one emergency after another, she noted. The last straw came for her in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire and significant flooding, when the Las Vegas Senior Center briefly shuttered because of plumbing issues.

“The morale is just horrible” among local seniors, she said. “It is so bad.”

She became a regular visitor at the senior center a few years ago, after four surgeries in 2021 wore her out. Having meals there is a practical choice — it alleviates the need to shop, prep meals and clean up afterward, which she called “a chore.”

Allen would like to see more activities available through the center, in addition to its regular schedule of tai chi, card games and crafting. Still, she said, “I’m very thankful for it. I take advantage of it.”

‘I don’t want to be a burden’

Stephanita Vigil may have turned 90 in July, but that hasn’t stopped her from making at least some of this year’s Christmas gifts by hand.

During a recent crafting club session at the Las Vegas Senior Center, Vigil pulled project after project, handicraft after handicraft out of her bag. When she tired of crocheting a doily, she swapped white thread for colorful embroidery floss and started stitching a floral pattern into a square of fabric.

The projects keep her hands busy, said Vigil, who was born in New Mexico and has lived in Las Vegas for most of her adult life.

“I used to do a lot of sewing, making different things — pillows, baby blankets, bibs, potholders, you name it. ... Anything that comes to mind, I’ll sit down and work on it,” she said.

From across the table, fellow crafter Kevin Johnson noted Vigil gifted her a hand-sewn pillowcase featuring a hunky cowboy.

But as she’s grown older, Vigil said some activities — including working on her craft projects — have grown more difficult.

In years past, she saved months of completed projects to sell at December holiday fairs. Now, spending hours hunched over a sewing machine or embroidery hoop or even staffing a fair booth would take toll on her body.

Housework, too, has become a challenge. Vigil said she tends to lose her balance or grow tired trying to keep the house clean.

“I try. I keep trying because I don’t want to be a burden or depend on anybody,” she said.

Luckily, Vigil’s family members help. Vigil said her son, who lives with her, takes care of what she calls “the heavy work,” including mopping, cooking and grocery shopping. Her daughter and granddaughter come in to keep the house clean.

“I get a lot of help from my kids. They’re very good to me,” Vigil said.

The Wednesday afternoon crafting club is a time for Vigil to socialize, to work on her projects, to have an afternoon out.

“There’s really no other place to go where you can, you know, do anything,” Vigil said.

She’s been a regular visitor at the Las Vegas Senior Center for some 15 years.

When Vigil gave up driving two years ago, fellow crafter Alice Saiz offered her a ride. Now, the two have a regular Wednesday rhythm: They join the crafting circle and then head to Dairy Queen for a treat.

Healthy, but lacking health care

Dana Root may be 75 years old, but she doesn’t feel that way.

“I feel more like I’m in my early 60s,” she said.

That might be because Root, by any measure, is exceptionally active. A frequent rider with the Santa Fe Seniors On Bikes, she logs thousands of miles each year on the seat of her bicycle. Able to access 25 different trailheads from her home in Eldorado, she hikes year-round, and she skis through the winter.

She’s a regular at the Eldorado senior center, often joining its exercise programs. She meets weekly with a knitting group and monthly with a book club. And she’s in the early stages of learning to play mahjong. All of it keeps her mind and body healthy, Root said.

“Socialization is imperative because they ask you questions — what’s going on in your life? what’s going on in the world?” she said. “The interactions, I think, are as important as the physical health.”

In many ways, Root said spending her retirement in Santa Fe “just felt right.” Born and raised in Albuquerque, Root and her husband returned to New Mexico about a decade ago, after stints in states throughout the American West and more than 20 years in Milwaukee. As the couple searched for a small city with airport access to visit children on either coast, Santa Fe fit the bill.

There’s just one problem: From Root’s perspective, access to health care is inadequate in Santa Fe.

“It’s like the second world — it’s not ‘Third World,’ and it’s sure not ‘First World,’ ” she said of the local health care market.

It was one of the first thing neighbors — many of them around Root’s age — warned her about upon moving to Eldorado.

“The neighbors said, ‘Have you heard [about] or tried to deal with the health care here?’ “ Root recalled.

In Milwaukee, Root was accustomed to being able to schedule same-day or next-day appointments with her doctor. Here, she said, primary care appointments are typically at least a week away, while specialist treatment can require waiting three, four, five or six weeks.

In their decade of living in Santa Fe County, she and her husband have both cycled through five or six primary care physicians, Root said.

Now, she said, the couple receive a lot of their health care in Albuquerque, where access to care is “a little bit better” — though she noted making trips back and forth will become more difficult as they grow older.

For Root, the local health care system is not a dealbreaker — yet.

Though she’s still active and healthy — and still able to manage trips to Albuquerque for care — Root said she’d move away if her health deteriorated.

“As we get older, we’re going to have more medical issues,” she said. “Do we want to stay here — in a location that this medical system is operating that doesn’t provide good care?”