FROM the very day on which she was born, April 27, 1921, Pastorita Núñez González earned the label "rebellious" because, as the story goes, she wouldn’t stop crying in the midwife’s arms. A label that she never lost, not even now, after a cerebral hemorrhage ended her life, because the dreams that she built remain undefeated.
 
The outstanding revolutionary, who collaborated with Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro and was a combatant in the cities and the Sierra Maestra, was born into a working class family.
Having lost her mother at the age of five, in August of 1933, when she was only 12 years old, she accompanied her father to a public demonstration against the Gerardo Machado dictatorship, and two years later met Eduardo Chibás, leader of the Orthodoxy Party, of which she was a member.
 
Desde joven perteneció a la organización Hermandad de los Jóvenes Cubanos junto a Juan Manuel Márquez. Participó en incontables acciones revolucionarias, por las cuales sufrió numerosos arrestos.
 
Fue activa combatiente clandestina en las filas del Movimiento 26 de Julio y fundadora del Frente Cívico de Mujeres Martianas. En junio de 1958 ascendió a la Sierra Maestra. Como guerrillera, con el nombre de guerra Agustina, alcanzó los grados de Primer Teniente del Ejército Rebelde.
 
As a young woman she belonged to the Brotherhood of Cuban Youth along with Juan Manuel Márquez. She participated in countless revolutionary actions, for which she was arrested many times.
She was an active underground fighter in the ranks of the 26th of July Movement and a founder member of the Civic Front of Martí Women. In June 1958 she went up into the Sierra Maestra. As a guerrilla there, with the code name of Agustina, she rose to the rank of First Lieutenant in the Rebel Army.
 
In the period of the uprising she was considered outstanding by her comrades in struggle, especially by the people and Fidel who, referring to her role in the war, wrote, "Pastorita Núñez González rendered exceptional and dangerous services to the Rebel Army in the struggle against the dictatorship by collecting taxes amounting to several million pesos, this being her most outstanding work. She accomplished her mission with unique courage, efficiency and honesty." When the Revolution triumphed in 1959, she was placed at the head of the National Institute of Savings and Housing (INAV), which allowed her to play a leading role in one of the first housing programs of the revolutionary government. From then she became a builder of dreams, promoting the construction of homes in several cities and neighborhoods, which the people christened Pastorita’s housing projects.
 
With the same tenacity until her retirement in 1975, she held different positions of responsibility. Even in retirement with declining health, she maintained the active and rebellious temperament of a woman of her vital and revolutionary stature.
 
Pastorita was 89 years old when she died, and had been awarded countless medals and decorations. Her remains were cremated on December 26. Translated by Granma International