Horse Psychologist article

John Browne, Vista horse psychologist, dies

By EDMOND JACO- STAFF WRITER

JUNE 16, 2005, 12 AM

VISTA —— John Browne bought a house in Vista in 1968.

The Garden Grove nurse and physical therapist wanted it to be a place where unwed mothers could wait out their pregnancies, butthen he and his wife, Barbara, decided it would be nice to live in the country, so they and their four children moved in, too, a year later.

It was an interesting living arrangement, said Browne’s daughter, Julie Harland of Carlsbad.

“When we moved in, we lived in one room, all six of us, and the unwed mothers had the rest of the house,” Harland said. “It took us about two years to take over the house.”

That was the way Browne, who died June 8 in Sacramento at the age of 76, lived his life —— trying to help people in need.

The house was a dream for Browne, who wanted a place in the country where he could keep horses.

Vista, which was much more rural 36 years ago, seemed like the perfect place. After moving into the home on 4.5 acres, Browne attended Palomar College to study horse training. Then he apprenticed under an American Indian trainer for two years, said his son, Dan Browne of Vista.

“He took horses that were problems, bad horses,” Dan Browne said. “He used to say that he had to figure out what made the horse behave the way it did, so he would spend up to 12 hours a day sometimes with one.” On his business card he advertised his services with a two-word title: horse psychologist.

“He did that all through the 1970s and the early 1980s,” DanBrowne said. “He would work as a physical therapist during the day,and from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. he worked with the horses in a lighted training ring.”

A Navy hospital corpsman during the Korean War, Browne became are gistered nurse after completing training at Orange CountyHospital in 1956, then obtained a physical therapy degree from Loma Linda University in 1960.

“We lived in Garden Grove then, and there was a home for unwed mothers there,” said Harland. “When they had a girl who just couldn’t get along with the others in the house, my parents would take her in and she’d live in our house, and not one of them was ever a problem.”

In fact, Harland said, as long as she lived in her parents home,it was a place where people who needed a roof over their heads could go for shelter. And they did —— not just unwed mothers, but people in the midst of divorces, people in financial trouble,people who just needed a home.

“He thought of himself as just an ordinary guy, and he saw someone special in everyone he knew,” Harland said. “You know, he even used to go to thrift shops to buy his shirts, and he always said it didn’t really matter if they fit because the ones that didn’t could always be donated to Goodwill.”

Browne retired abruptly after a heart attack in 1991. That didn’t slow him down much, though, according to Dan Browne andHarland.

Wearing his signature cowboy hat, Browne became a storyteller,ultimately writing 151 short stories, and an artist; he sang in a barbershop quartet.

With his wife, Browne owned and operated Twin Peaks Retirement Homes from 1978 and Barbara Browne Healthcare of North County from 1981.