Archive » June 1, 2007

The white and black clock hangs on the wall, ticking away, but all the numbers seem to have fallen right off the face and are gathered at the base. There’s a saying in the center of it that reads “Who cares?”  

Just like the clock, the little old woman has just a bit of an ironic character. She’s well known throughout Santa Barbara County for her longevity and love for horse riding. “Energizer Bunny” is her nickname, and it suits her. She’s 96-year-old going on 97 and according to her, the best years of her life can’t be counted yet.

She’s a celebrity in her own right, and just by the simple mention of her name, people know who Harriet “Hattie” Feazelle is.

“I’m full-blooded Italian,” Hattie says. “So I guess that’s where I get my health from.”

Born in 1911 to Teresa and Andreas Battaini, Hattie still remembers packing up her German Sheppard Major, hopping atop her horse Kim and ridding from Santa Barbara to the Valley.

“I used to leave the house and tell my mother I was going to the ranch,” Hattie says. “My mother never knew I would spend the night outdoors in the hills all by myself.”

“Well, I had Major and he was all the protection I needed.”

Though Hattie was born in Santa Barbara at Cottage Hospital and spent three-quarters of her life in “Old Santa Barbara” her famous blue dress and side-saddled poise has become as much a part of Santa Barbara County’s Fiesta Parade as the paper machete egg-throwing crowd.

“I rode my horse Kim in the very first Fiesta Parade,” Hattie says. “I remember before Fiesta, there was La Prima Vera, and one time I was all saddled-up on my horse and I was invited to join in right on the spot. In those days we would start riding on Mission Street and go to the beach.”

“I guess that’s how life is, you get turned around,” she jokes.

After graduating from Santa Barbara High school Hattie met her husband Jack, while giving horse riding lessons to kids at a little stable on the lower East-side of Santa Barbara.

“We got married in 1936, that I remember,” Hattie says. “He was a navy man and we named our first house on La Cumbre Road ‘Misty Acres.’”

After Jack died in 1987 Hattie moved to the Valley and she took the sign with her, only now it reads “Misty Acre.”

“Now I only have one acre so the ‘S’ is blacked out now.”

“I moved over here because it was just getting too crowded in Santa Barbara and I felt lonely in Santa Barbara all by myself. My kids were living in the Valley,” Hattie says. “[Sadly] the Valley isn’t what it was even 10-years ago.”

When people ask her what she’s enjoyed most about her life, she has only one answer.

“My life isn’t over yet,” she says. “But I have enjoyed my live so far.”