Horse Tales - by Judy Manza and Dorette Markham

My older children attended Narrows Co-op Preschool, across the street from the orchard, during the time the horses lived there. The horses, as you can imagine, were very popular with the preschoolers. Sometimes the children would feed the horses carrots and apples through the fence slats.

My favorite memory was one year when the preschool teacher, "Miss Molly" Wolfe, was teaching a unit on music and marching bands. She asked me and another mom to bring our band instruments and play marches and school fight songs so the children could march around to the music. Since it was a nice day, we did this outside on our school playground. As soon as the horses heard the music, they came running from the other side of the orchard and stood along the fence facing the playground, where they stayed until our marching session was done.

-Judy Manza My family and I lived just above the Curran’s property on Ridge Road from 1971 until my husband and I moved to The Ranch in UP in 1996. Our three children were adults by then and long gone.

The Curran horses were never frisky horses, but rather sedate and usually could be seen munching on grass. Our daughter, Toni, really loved those horses and they eventually came to know her and trust her since she usually walked by them on the way to and from Curtis Junior and Senior High Schools every day.

As a result of that love for the Curran horses, Toni owned horses of her own in the semi-rural Olympia area and her lovely step-daughter, Lydia, is also a huge equine fan who rides competitively. Also Lydia’s husband trained to be a farrier a few years ago.

Thus the Curran’s two horses have had a tremendous influence on my family!

-Dorette M. Markham