I grew up in Topeka, Kansas. I can’t remember when I was not horse crazy. We played Cowboys and Indians all the time. I must have been in the first or second grade when I begged my mom to let me take riding lessons. When I was in the 5 & 6th grade my very best friend’s family owned a stable and she showed American Saddle Bred horses. I thought she was the luckiest girl alive and I was the next luckiest because I got to hang around the stable. They also gave lessons and did some boarding. I got to take riding lessons there. My friend and I would ride one of the lesson horses all over their farm. It was a great time until one day the trainer caught us riding down the highway, boy did we get in trouble. That was the end of the riding all over the place.

From there, we moved to Mooresville, Indiana. There was a quarter mile race track practically across the street from where I lived and glory be, there were 2 horses out in pasture -- Bing and Dolly. I spent hours there every day after school, I would feed those horses peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I couldn’t ride them but they were horses and I could be around them.

Just down the street there was a pony farm. The owners were Dusty and Helen. They had just lost their son in a car wreck. I was always hanging around there. I must have been about 11 then.. One day, they invited me to come see all the ponies. The next thing you know I had a pony to ride. Dusty made us ride bareback and we could not tie our reins together. When Dusty thought we were good enough, we got to ride with a saddle. I will never forget that saddle, it was black, had little silver dots on it, and it had a breast collar with dots too. It was the prettiest thing I ever saw. We had to clean stalls and take care of the other ponies. Dusty made pony equipment. Before long I was learning how to break a pony to drive to a cart, then driving a team behind a buckboard and a Hanson cab.

We moved again to the other side of Mooresville where we had some acreage. I still visited Dusty and Helen a lot and rode and drove the ponies (they had Shetlands and horse ponies.). Then I found out there were a couple horses in a pasture about a mile or so from my house, so off I went on my bike after school to make friends with them. One was a large Strawberry Roan, the other a smaller quarter horse. I would take them sugar cubes. I used to sneak rides on that mare using just a rope on her. After a while, I got my dad to go talk to the owner about selling her. She was a Tennessee Walker. Beauty was her nickname and she was my first very own horse. I did everything with that horse: I broker her to drive and drove her all over the county. I rode her all over too. My friend had a quarter horse and I learned to contest on her horse. I did a lot of contesting and quarter mile races.

A few years later, I was married and then divorced. I had a son who literally grew up on a horse. I met the DeBauns who were raising Black Morgan Horses. Mr. DeBaun lived in Plainfield so I went there every day to help them with the Morgan’s, their younger son babysat for me while I worked horses. We showed Morgans all over the country. It was durin this time I became really sold on Morgans.

I moved to Southern Indiana and worked with horses before moving to Frankfort, Indiana where my parents were living. I had decided to give up horses and that worked for about 2 years then I got back into them. I met my husband Steve and he bought me a Morgan to work with while he was busy at the softball park. Even though my husband does not ride, he has always supported my horse addiction. He even got involved and showed one of our Morgan’s in hand. Eventually we got more Morgan’s and we showed them for many years. We now we have 7 Morgans. In addition, my son has a Morgan and a Quarter Horse. We have 9 pet skunks, 2 dogs and 4 cats (one 3 legged cat I picked up out of the road and saved,) I have 4 grandkids. One granddaughter has been riding with my son and me for the last couple years.