Connie Madlem works demo station at MH’s Trader Joe’s
Published in the November 11-24, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Robert Airoldi
Photo courtesy Connie Madlem
Connie Madlem on the brother of a horse she brought back from Ireland.
When she was a child growing up in Los Altos, Connie Madlem simply knew she loved horses. She had no doubt about it. The rest of her family had no doubt about it, too, when they started smelling an unusual odor coming from her room.
At the age of about 8 or 9, she collected dried horse manure from area ranches and put the smelly stuff under her bed so her room would smell like a barn.
“I was horse crazy as a kid,” she said. “I just loved the whole horse thing. The sights, the smells and the sounds.”
And the senior, who tells people she’s “on the wrong side of 60,” continues her love of the equestrian lifestyle. Although she’s owned as many as 10 horses at one time, today she has two, both of which she brought back from Ireland – one two years ago, the other 17 years ago.
She has participated in the Connemara Trail Tour, a week- or two-week ride through and around Ireland’s coast. She’s done both rides and has completed five in the past 20 years.
“It’s just a magical ride,” she said. “You wake up, have an amazing Irish breakfast, ride along beautiful countryside, have a picnic lunch, stay in castles and manors, have a great dinner, then get up and do it all over again.”
She also enjoys riding and horse-camping for days in San Luis Obispo, Pescadero, Point Reyes and in Grant Ranch County Park in San Jose. She camps with her friends dubbed the “Sisterherds,” who all don jackets with the name embroidered on the shoulders.
“I feel fortunate to have horses as my hobby,” she said.
Madlem’s daughter, who lives in Gilroy, also loves horses. “It’s in her blood too,” she said.
Her son lives in San Jose and his 5-year-old son has caught the bug, she said.
Born in San Francisco, Madlem has lived her entire life in the Bay Area. She graduated from Los Altos High school and attended De Anza and Foothill community colleges. She eventually got a job as a secretary for the superintendent of schools for the Palo Alto School District in the 1970s.
She married and had a boy and a girl — both now in their 40s. As they grew, she divorced and took various jobs such as a waitress to be home with them during the day.
She learned to teach Jazzercise classes, and eventually remarried.
“It definitely made a difference in my health and I love dancing,” she said of instructing the classes.
Her classes use to be held in the Downtown Mall. Because that site recently closed, she’s looking for a new space.
After her second divorce, Madlem owned 10 horses while she lived in Los Altos and started looking for a place to move. She found a home in west Morgan Hill and rented it from a man who was also going through a divorce.
They got to know each other for three years and at first resisted the mutual attraction they had for each other.
“Finally, we got together and it’s been great,” she said.
Today she works in the demo area at Morgan Hill’s Trader Joe’s store. She still teaches Jazzercise and does massage therapy.
“It’s just a great place to work,” she said of her job at the supermarket where she gets to chat with customers. “We’re like a big family.”
