Lola de la Fuente, co-founder of the company of Palencia "Pipas Facundo”, passes away in Villada.
10/09/2006

Maria Dolores de la Fuente Perez, co-founder of the company, Pipas Facundo, and of the whole business group that lies behind it, passed away yesterday morning at the age of 84 after a long illness.
María Dolores de la Fuente was born in  Herrera de Pisuerga in 1923. The eighth of nine siblings, she began to work when she was very young. In 1944, she married Facundo Blanco. That same year the couple created the company, Pipas Facundo, in Villada, which has continued to operate to the present day, when Lola de la Fuente was no longer involved in the Group’s business activity. She was a widow and had two daughters: Rosa María and María Dolores.
She had a warm nature and she won the friendship, recognition and respect of the town where she lived for most of her life. In fact, Villada Town Hall gave her the freedom of the town and, soon afterwards, they granted her the Gold Medal of the town.
The Villada church was packed with villagers, employees from the Facundo factories, important local and regional figures, both from the political and economic fields, who wanted to be with the family during their last farewell to Lola de la Fuente, who was remembered because of her «tremendous humanity».
Many were those that heard these words, but many others packed the square next to the church, where they waited for their neighbour’s coffin to come out, borne by a group of relatives and friends.
Due to the large number of important figures and anonymous citizens that wanted to say farewell to Lola de la Fuente, the Civil Guard and the Local Police had to intervene to speed up the passage of the funeral procession from Villada to the capital’s cemetery.

Furthermore, during her professional career, she achieved recognitions from the Palencia Federation of Business Activities (Confederación Palentina de Organizaciones Empresariales), which granted her the title of Exemplary Businesswoman, and from the Business Federation of Castile and León (Confederación Empresarial de Castilla y León), which granted her the Golden Cecale of Palencia in 2001. The Ministry of Work also took notice of her and presented her with the Medal for Merit at Work in 1991.  However, the greatest tribute of all was a posthumous one, when yesterday the citizens of Palencia named a street in the capital of Palencia after her.
 
The choice of Lola de la Fuente has been marked by her recent death, but neither the Government nor the opposition has had the slightest doubt that this «enterprising businesswoman of Palencia, founder of the Facundo Company» has earned this honour.