AS one enters the Baguio Country Club (BCC), a colorful shop attracts the eye.
Coco’s Gift Shop. Coco as in Socorro Merrill. A gracious lady of 86 who has owned and run BCC’s gift shop since the mid-1960s, when the club was yet a sleepy place with not much to offer, except the serenity of its surrounding and the green, green grass of the golf course.
I found Coco, as everyone pleasantly calls her, in a quiet corner of the pastry shop fronting her store.
She was reading a book of Mike Murdock written in Spanish, and gave me a kind smile of welcome as she invited me to have coffee with her.
A chocolate bar was on the table but remained untouched through our exchange, as she got so carried away and animated with her stories of reaching back to old times and old friends, which eventually led to her opening and managing the gift shop.
On her left ring finger was a gold wedding band. Perhaps, the story begins here.
Coco was a young bride of 19, whose husband’s family owned the La Paz and Bonanza mining operations in Nicaragua, Central America.
Their wedding rings were mined from these holdings. It was also the mining experience of her husband, Floyd, that brought her across the globe, when the Benguet Consolidated Corp. (BCC) in Balatoc hired Floyd for his expertise in its own mining operations.
“We arrived in the Philippines in 1950,” Coco said.
She was 22 and full of wonder and curiosity about her new world, which was to be her home for the rest of her life.
She spoke only Spanish with a very small sprinkling of English words but went around just the same exploring the city and its antics.
“I particularly loved the market. There was so much to see and buy,” she recalled.
She chanced upon the souvenir shop of the Alabanza family, and right away felt like family with them.
Emerenciana Mendoza Alabanza spoke fluent Spanish which, aside from a natural instant warmth they felt for each other, fostered the best of friendship between them. This made Coco go to the market more and more often, sharing hot lunches in their shop brought from the Alabanza home.
The little details throughout the conversation told me what a warm-hearted lady she was, and how she cherished friendships from long ago. She saw in Mrs. Alabanza, whom she called Meren or Mering, a kind of maternal figure who listened and understood her problems and difficulties in a new country. She also gratefully remembers how, through Alabanza, a respected and prominent figure herself, she was introduced to more and more Baguio residents, many of them considered the builders of the city.
“I loved her shop. There were so many colorful things. I started to wish that I would have a shop of my own someday like that,” she said.
She laughed at the memory as I reminded her that the Alabanza shop was a happy clutter of interesting curio items, with a vibrancy of the mountain-culture souvenirs, while her shop was a collection of classy and elegant things, so impeccably arranged and displayed.
Her husband’s stint brought them to Albay but they returned to Baguio in the late 1960s, at a time when her time was free and she was mulling over going back to school to finish a college degree.
Coco called it the force that led and kept her in a lifetime of connection with the BCC, for it was a culmination of unexpected circumstances that shaped her future as a mainstay at the club.
Her eyes crinkled as she laughed, struggling to recall family names, yet able to narrate the details of conversations and situations. The BCC needed a manager, and Mary, who was a board member, remembered that her friend, Katie Reed, back in America just lost her husband and might be wanting a change of atmosphere to soothe the emptiness. Reed came to manage BCC at a time when the club had no money, and she worked at times without a salary but eventually got business perking up here. She and Reed also became very close, which drew her closer again to BCC.
It was a Spanish-speaking woman also, Annie Rice, who ran the old BCC gift shop. But her health was getting frail and she had to leave for the US for medical care. Coco was asked to consider taking over. “When I saw the place, I never looked back. I am never negative but I also knew good things were to happen here,” she said. “I like taking chances.”
Life rolled on with her life growing and her circle of friends expanding, with friends of friends coming over to the hotel. She was filled with a general sense of well-being as she continued to learn many things from these daily encounters. She made friends with accomplished BCC members, whom she admired for their determination to succeed. When a person got to where he was on his own and did super well, you become proud to become his friend, she said.
Her admiration of other people actually came from isolated anecdotes she keeps close to her heart. She remembers how a lightning struck a pine tree next to the building and almost killed it. But Reed simply asked the workers to put some of the cement from a construction they were working on into the tree hole, and the tree lived a very long time.
Reed also brought with her cherished heirloom recipes as she was from an Irish ancestry. The famous 200-year-old BCC raisin-bread recipe was one of these.
She also animatedly told the story why the late President Ferdinand Marcos will forever be her president. He used to play golf very early, take a shower and greet the people around while at breakfast at the open veranda. It happened that, at one time, anthropologist Dr. Robert Fox had just returned from a Manila hospital after suffering a stroke. Marcos knew of it and as he strode into the veranda, looked around and spotted Fox, and told him, “I want to let you know that we increased your pension and if ever you have any problem again, just call and we will send a plane for you.” Everyone in the veranda applauded in tribute to Fox and the thoughtfulness of Marcos.
It was acts of kindness like this that Coco would be proud of knowing anyone, and not so much the stature of the person.
It was also her kind heart that kept people loyal to her.
In her shop, many of the things she sells come with a story of friendship. It is, indeed, a beautiful shop and she says that she is surprised herself how it all came out so well, especially after some P3 million of her items were burned down in a 1990 fire just a day before Christmas Eve.
Coco always loved fine China and ceramics, and her shop is adorned by these items. Rare collections from Europe and China of porcelain and fine China, also imported by a good friend of hers.
Now a big name, Kristine Shells are also popular items in her shop, and Coco says she is proud that she was the first outlet of these ornamental shells.
Pretty potholders are made by Josie Dicman, who has sewn items for Coco for about 30 years. Coco spreads beautiful bedcovers all lovingly embroidered by Dicman.
“I’m very proud of her,” she said. So is Alicia Pacan, who has been at her side for 31 years.
It easily shows how Coco exudes all that is bright, beautiful and loving, and kind. To the club members and constant guests, a stay at the hotel is never complete without a chat with her.
Most of all, the wedding ring she still wears speaks this best for her.
Floyd died in 1980, but has remained the only man in her life, with daughter Evita being the best gift of their union. She wore out her own wedding ring thin and now wears Floyd’s wedding ring.
She said he loved to read cowboy books as he grew up in Arizona. He also read Sherlock Holmes a lot.
“I would let him read for days, and at dinner table or leisure hour, he would tell me the stories from the books he read,” she said of the simple memories of the great love of her life.
“He was a very kind man. I wonder why people can’t be that kind to one another,” she mulled.
She looks out the glass pane far into the pine trees outside, and the blueness of the skies like Floyd would be there.
“Wearing this ring makes me always think of him,” she said, twirling the band of gold in her finger.