BELOVED SAUGUS BARBER PRAISED FOR LOVE OF WORK, HELPING OTHERS.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Daily News Staff Writer

Perhaps ``Papa'' Gustafson is trimming St. Peter's locks today at the Pearly Gates. It would be no surprise to the people who knew and loved Merrill Andrew Gustafson, who died Monday at age 92.

Gustafson, an Iowa native and Saugus resident for seven years, was barber to millionaires in the fine shops he owned and to the frail gentlemen at the Santa Clarita Senior Center where he donated his services once a week.

For 30 years, Gustafson owned the barbershop in the old Huntington Sheraton Hotel in Pasadena and barbered Pac-10 teams in town for the Rose Bowl. In a shop he set up in his Saugus garage - barber pole and all - the little neighbor boys who called him Papa stepped into the chair for free haircuts.

He once cut the dark locks of then-Vice President Richard Nixon and coiffed Norman Vincent Peale.

Over the years, he owned a number of barbershops in the Los Angeles area - on Crenshaw Boulevard, at the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, the L.A. Athletic Club and in the Clark Hotel.

His grandson Darrell Creitz was 17 the first time somebody else cut his hair.

``He was very proud of what he did,'' Creitz said Wednesday. ``He told me just last week, `I never had a single day I didn't enjoy going to work.' It always made him feel good when he helped others look their best.''

In December Gustafson's doctor told him he could no longer volunteer as barber to the elderly men - and some women - who sat in the barber chair before his old beveled-glass mirror at the senior center. It meant the end of haircuts for little boys who thought barbershop meant Papa's garage.

His heart was failing and there was a tremor in the hand that lovingly held scissors during a 70-year career as a barber - not a stylist, his grandson pointed out.

``I remember coming home one night and he told me, `Devon came to the door and I had to tell him I can no longer cut his hair,' '' said Gustafson's daughter, Marilyn Nichols Patrick. ``Devon is a little 7- or 8-year-old neighbor boy. He told me that when Devon left and `I realized I could no longer cut hair, I bawled like a baby.' ''

Patrick remembered her father as a fine person, an eternal optimist and a deeply religious man. He read the Bible cover to cover at least once a year, she said.

A former La Crescenta resident, he was a longtime member of Church on the Way in Van Nuys and was involved till recently with World Opportunity in Hollywood, an organization formed to help inner-city youths.

A memorial service is scheduled for 10 a.m. today at Church on the Way, with interment following at 2:30 p.m. at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall.

Gustafson is survived by his daughter; five brothers and sisters; grandsons Darrell, William and Richard Creitz; and five great-grandchildren.

Darrell Creitz said Gustafson was one of a kind.

``He cut my hair up to three months ago. Nobody can do it like he did,'' he said. ``I count myself lucky to have grown up with a man who always had a lot of pride, who loved his customers. He never said a bad thing about anyone. He never took a penny he didn't earn. There aren't that many people like that any more.''

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Photo: (Color) Barber Merrill Andrew Gustafson, 92, whose c ustomers included then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon, passed away Monday.