together really well but our mom is the main cog.”
Susan raised both of her girls around horses from the very
start, whether working for others or eventually running her
own business.
“I feel like it taught them to be independent and do a lot
of thinking for themselves at a young age,” Susan said. Her
girls would tag along after her while she taught lessons, rode
horses, met with veterinarians and farriers, negotiated with
feed suppliers, and took clients to competitive horse shows.
“My goal was to give them a good work ethic and let
them know life is hard work, that there’s no easy path,”
Susan said.
While she never pressured Caitlin or Kirsten to work
in her business, or in the horse industry in general, it was
always on the table. Living at home meant working at home.
Both of her daughters have had other jobs, but Susan said,
“It turns out this is where they both want to be.”
Susan said she’s especially proud of both her daughters
for overcoming difficulties that began in childhood. Caitlin
had an audio processing disorder as a child, and Kirsten
has epilepsy. “They’re so different but they both have great
personalities and senses of humor.”
Growing up with horses contributed to their strength.
“Horses teach you a lot of responsibility,” Kirsten said.
“I loved being around the horses. They teach you how to
be a better person.”
Perhaps most important when it comes to working
together to run the business, Susan said, is that, “I can trust
them one hundred percent to have my back both personally
and professionally, in this particular business.”
The equestrian business is highly competitive. “At your
barn when you hire someone to come in, nine times out of
ten, they’ll want to take your customers,” Susan explained.
In fact, that very thing happened right around the time
that Caitlin began working for her mother years ago. A
trainer came on board who brought “the ugly side of the
business” into their home, Caitlin said.
“It was a struggle to get through that,” Caitlin said. “We
came out of it better and closer professionally and personally.”
Susan is proud of the women her daughters have become.
Perhaps because of her own struggle with low self-esteem,
she said, “I’ve always tried to make them feel good about
themselves.”
She credits her own mom as being an excellent role
model. “I had a great mom. I learned a lot from her about
how to deal with other people.”
Susan said that she and her husband Joe took a fairly
laid-back approach to parenting. “I didn’t like being shoved
into piano lessons and things I just wasn’t interested in as
a kid, which a lot of parents do to their kids.” Instead, she
thought, “They could try anything they wanted.”
Caitlin and Kirsten both appreciated this aspect of their
upbringing, which involved a lot of imaginative play and
time spent with animals.
“I don’t think we were ever bored,” Caitlin said.
Susan is grateful to have experienced personal closeness
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and professional success with her daughters. In fact, they’ve
become so crucial to the business, she said, “My husband
and I have talked about it and if for some reason, God for-
bid, something should happen to them or they didn’t want
to work with us anymore, we both decided running the
business wouldn’t be worth it without them.”
A Mother, Her Daughter, A Story of Strength
Edith Edde and
Nita Edde-Mitchell
T
he bright blue poster with photos highlighting
events in Edith Edde’s life was the featured attraction
at her 90th birthday party. The celebration was held
last September at the Elks Lodge in Gilroy with two
hundred guests in attendance.
“We figured a lot of people wouldn’t be able to come but
just about everybody came,” Nita Edde-Mitchell, Edith’s
second oldest of four, said.
Nita is an RN and mother of two, who after graduating
from high school moved to Fresno to attend college. Forty
years later she returned to Gilroy and married her high
school sweetheart, Dan Mitchell, in her mother’s backyard.
“I was delighted when Nita moved back to town,” Edith
said, adding that her daughter has been there whenever she’s
needed her.
For Nita the most memorable moment of last year’s
birthday party was when Edith danced with her brother, her
only living sibling.
“That took me out, I was crying,” Nita said.
april/may 2019
gmhtoday.com