By Mary A. Jacobson
For many decades, residents of Greenwich have periodically heard the clop-clop-clopping sound of horse’s hooves, only to turn and see a handsome horse and buggy coming down the road. It’s a reassuring sound, far removed from the screeching sound of tires or the honking of car horns. One might say it is almost meditative. Has the viewer stepped into a time machine and been suddenly transported to a bygone age?
The Oral History Project tasked interviewer Kate Loh with the challenge of finding the answers. She met Greenwich resident Blaise Anello in 2024 who revealed to her the tale of the long and winding road that led him from a boyhood farm in the Tunisian countryside to horse and buggying in Greenwich.
Blaise Anello was born in Tunisia in 1942 “right in the middle of the war. And the war was in North Africa as well as in Europe… Cars at the time were very scarce. My father had a car. And the Italian army came over and they say, ‘We need the car for the war effort.’ And my father had no choice. So (he) went back to horse and buggy like he grew up with.” The bombing in the Tunisian city where they lived caused Anello’s family to relocate to the countryside and rent a farm where they could grow crops. “There was a shortage of everything. There were breadlines.” His dad fashioned a two-wheel cart for his horse made from a car axle with car wheels. “He built a wooden body on it, and he had a way to get to town.”
In 1947, after the war ended, Blaise Anello and his family moved back to the city. However, memories of the farm, and particularly its animals, never left him. “I remember certain things. And the love for horses never left me.” Twelve years later, at the age of 17 in 1959, Anello’s family emigrated to the United States and settled in Yonkers, where he attended high school. There, he met a classmate, Anna, who would later become his wife. After graduation, “We did not see each other for about five years.” However, in 1965, fate intervened on a NYC subway where he noticed Anna. “We recognized each other, and we started dating. And soon after, we decided that we wanted to get married.”
Shortly afterward, Anello obtained a temporary position with an American company in Tunisia, where he and Anna were married. While back in Tunisia, Anello bought a horse. “Just for pleasure. I always wanted to have a horse…This was something I had in my blood all along.” He actually bought two, one for Anna. “And she rode, and I found out later just to please me. It wasn’t in her blood.” Eighteen months later, “when the job was over, I sold the horses.”
Anello returned to the States with Anna and hoped to find a place to live that might also accommodate horses. Purdy’s Farm, on King Street at the time had an apartment there in the barn “and they rented to us. So, once I found that barn, I went to look for a horse.” An ad in the New York Times featured a retired riding mare for two hundred dollars. “Heidi was my first horse in the United States.”
It soon became obvious to Anello that his wife, Anna, “wasn’t crazy about riding. She had fallen off a few times. So, I decided, maybe if I teach the horse to drive, it could pull a carriage. Maybe we can both go on it, and she doesn’t have to ride on a saddle; she can sit right next to me.” Anello obtained his first buggy and harness from Stratford Farms on King Street by trading his talent for electrical work. The owner “had built a new barn and he wanted to put a few lights in there… I said, ‘Tell you what. We could do a trade. I’ll do the electrical work, and you give me that buggy and harness.’”
Anello really had no idea how to train a horse to pull a buggy at the time. “Now, I do this professionally. I train horses to drive… but when I was young and stupid, I knew nothing about it.” At that time, in 1968, Interstate 684 was completed, but not yet open to traffic. “And I taught my horse to drive on 684, a brand new highway between Greenwich and Armonk… One day, a van came by, and it didn’t look like the police, but it was a news crew… here’s a brand new 1960s highway, and here’s a horse and buggy riding on it.”
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Not long after, Anna found an ad for a house in Hillcrest Park in Old Greenwich with an acre of land, a “fixer upper.” According to Anello, “… the place was pitiful. There was a hole in the ceiling where it was raining in.” However, Anello saw its promise. “The price was reasonable. They said low thirties… and I says, ‘I could do something out of this place.’” At the time, Anna was uncertain but “fifty-six years later, we’re still there. We’re still fixing it.” Three children and eight grandchildren have been added to their family in the ensuing years.
Blaise Anello is a welcome sight with his horse and buggy at Tod’s Point. His twelve-mile route from home is a familiar one, going from Havemeyer Park to Wendle Lane, across Post Road to Laddins Rock Road, and past Perrot Library, and down Sound Beach Avenue to Shore Road. This round-trip ride takes a total of five to six hours from start to finish “but three hours is actually on the road… It’s about forty-five minutes over and back but then I rest and let (the horses) enjoy the view.”
Anello clearly enjoys the pleasure he gives to people who wave and greet him as he passes by. When people ask him how many miles to the gallon he gets, he has a ready answer. “I don’t get any miles to the gallon, but I get a lot of smiles to the mile.”
The Oral History Project is proud to present blogs derived from its collection of recorded interviews as part of the Project’s celebration of America 250 Greenwich – Greenwich History is American History. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Interviews may also be read in their entirety or checked out at the main library. They are also available for purchase by contacting the OHP office. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.
