Life Lessons and Legacies

“I want you to apologize to your mother,” the father of a young Mary Elizabeth “Deedee” O’Brien said as he looked her in the eye. The child had run to her father fo

r comfort after getting into a disagreement with her mother. “No way!” she exclaimed. “I want you to learn something,” he said, “I want you to learn that when you apologize, it will make her happy—and when you make someone else happy, that will bring you the most joy in life.”

Fast forward to 1972 when, in need of a place to keep her horse after leaving college to help care for her sick father, 21-year-old O’Brien knocked on the door of Dick Donovan’s Ironstone Farm in Andover, Mass. She became a working student and hasn’t left since.

One summer in the late 1970s, Ironstone Farm welcomed the disabled children O’Brien worked with in Lowell, Mass., to the farm for a cookout and to ride the horses. That year, many more requests would come rolling in from similar programs to visit the farm. Those outings gradually grew into a Saturday morning program, which later added Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to its schedule.

In the early ‘80s, in order to support the weekly program that was free of charge for disabled children, O’Brien and Ironstone Farm hosted a small horse show. The goal was to produce revenue—but when a parent of one of the competitors, who also happened to be a lawyer, asked how they did, “we only lost $19,” O’Brien quipped. “He took an interest and helped us become a 501c3 non-profit organization.”

In 1985, Challenge Unlimited was born. O’Brien has been the executive director since the beginning, working closely with Donovan, her mentor and good friend. When Donovan became ill and eventually passed in 2015, she adopted his never-say-never philosophy—a quality she credits for the exponential growth of the organization.

Under the leadership of O’Brien and Donovan, Challenge Unlimited expanded from its early days as a small therapeutic riding program to one that serves a wide variety of populations, including military veterans, recovering drug addicts, underserved teens, nursing home communities, and more. Having survived cancer and a brain tumor and now battling leukemia, O’Brien was happy to oblige when the opportunity came up to provide services to cancer patients. “I'm a cancer survivor and so is my colleague, so when we were approached about helping out cancer patients, we naturally said ‘yes’,” she explains.

The difference she and her team have made in their constituents’ lives has been invaluable. “We have one gentleman that comes in from the nursing home and his son comes and meets him there every week because when he's at the barn he talks—he doesn't talk at the nursing home.”

In the early ‘90s, four-year-old Mika Shingai came to Challenge Unlimited in a wheelchair with cerebral palsy. After receiving physical therapy through the program for a number of years, she moved to Hawaii with her family. “Her mother always attributed her ability to walk and hold her own from the strength that she got from hippotherapy,” says O’Brien.

But the story doesn’t end there. Shingai promised O’Brien she’d be back when she was old enough. She held up her end of the bargain and returned, and thanks to the encouragement of Donovan, O’Brien was able to keep her promise as well. Challenge Unlimited created a receptionist position for Shingai—and she’s been there ever since. “Ironstone Farm has been a very important and unique place in my life,” says Shingai. “Deedee and the whole team there are like a second family to me, and it will always be a special part of my life.”

In 2009, O’Brien proudly received the Lowell High School Distinguished Alumni Award for her work with Challenge Unlimited. “It was huge for me because it was a recognition before my family, friends and my childhood neighborhood,” she says.

At 67 years old, O’Brien works relentlessly to ensure the organization has a long and successful future ahead of it. “I am dedicated to continuing the cause because this organization can sincerely and profoundly change lives,” she proudly states. “My wish for the future, as Challenge Unlimited moves forward without me some day, is that the people that take it over never say no to an idea and use the very rich resource that we have to help others.”

That day at her childhood home, O’Brien apologized to her mother. As her mother knelt down and hugged her, O’Brien felt that moment—when making someone else happy brought her the most pleasure. It was a lesson that has stuck with her throughout her entire life.

As originally seen in Northeast Equestrian Life