Our Story and Team
Mary MacDonald and Karl Ackerman started Rest-Stop-Ranch in 2009, the year after Mary’s mother, Margaret, died of frontotemporal degeneration.
Why We Started
On Mother’s Day 2008, I took my mom, Margaret, to the botanical garden closest to her care facility. She was living with frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) and used a wheelchair, and I wanted us to smell some roses together. They didn’t have any. They sent us to a small “secret garden” where a few were growing, and we had trouble getting her wheelchair in.
Mom died on December 24, 2008. That same month my partner, Karl Ackerman, bought the 1909 house at 202 Haverhill Road. The next spring we started clearing invasive brush, and in 2011 we finished a 0.1-mile wheelchair-accessible trail in her memory.
In 2017 Mom’s best friend, Peggy, gave us a gift in her memory, and we planted 50 roses beside that trail, close enough to smell from a wheelchair. There are now more than 100. Everything we offer here is free of charge, for care-partners, care-receivers, and anyone touched by long-term illness.
Moving forward with a listening heart, vision, inquiry, and action,
Mary E. MacDonald, co-founder and President
My mom, Margaret, in Syracuse, NY, September 2007. I had just left my corporate job to manage her care.
The Land Before Us
Every step below is drawn from the recorded deeds at the Essex South District Registry of Deeds, the town assessor’s record, and the published Historical Collections of the Topsfield Historical Society. This is the documented chain of ownership for our four acres.
1706 – 1746
The Hood Family Settles by the Pond
Nathaniel Hood removes to the northwest part of Topsfield — the corner adjoining Ipswich and Boxford — after his 1706 marriage to Joanna Dwinnell. In 1746 he builds a house beside what is still called Hood’s Pond. The land “always remained in the Hood family and in the Hood name.” Source: Topsfield Historical Collections, Vol. 14.
1861
A Topsfield Homestead of Record
The earliest recorded deed we could trace conveys a ~75-acre Topsfield farm — with dwelling house, shop, and barn — from Isaac P. Clapp to Elbridge Clapp, bounded then (as in every deed for the next half-century) by Hood land to the east, Hale to the north and west, and Perley to the south. Source: Deed Bk 625, p. 208.
1880 – 1906
Clapp → Cotton → Steele
The farm passes from Elbridge Clapp to Charles G. Cotton (1880, $2,600) and on to Charles W. Steele (1906) — roughly ninety acres on the easterly side of Pye Brook. Sources: Deeds Bk 1037/251 & Bk 1829/575.
1909
Johnson L. Walker Builds the House — and Names “Brooktrail Farm”
In February 1909, Johnson L. Walker assembles the property — buying the ninety-acre piece from Steele and a 2.9-acre Haverhill-Street parcel from Ralph D. Hood (conveyed under the will of Salmon D. Hood). Ralph Hood, a civil engineer, draws the “Plan of Brooktrail Farm” that same year. Walker then builds the dwelling house and garage that still stand. Sources: Deeds Bk 1954/94 & /100; Topsfield Historical Collections, “Buildings Constructed… 1909.”
1925 – 1947
A Summer Place, Then the Dick Family
Walker’s widow, Mabel J. Walker, conveys Brooktrail Farm to Marguerite Williams Ragle of Boston in 1925. In 1947 it passes to Rudolph C. Dick of Beverly. (A 1930 county taking for the new Route 95 corridor had already begun reducing the once-90-acre farm.) Sources: Deeds Bk 2633/50 & Bk 3507/104.
1968 – 1999
The Dickinson Years
By now the four-acre house lot — surveyed as “202 Haverhill,” Lots 186–202 — has been carved from the larger farm. It moves from Dick to the Relick family (1968), then to Richard R. and Margaret C. Dickinson (1980), who hold it for nearly three decades. Sources: Deeds Bk 6759/59 & Bk 10590/225.
2008 – 2009
Mary & Karl Arrive
In December 2008, Karl Ackerman purchases the farmstead from the Dickinson trust. The following spring, he and Mary begin clearing invasive growth and reclaiming the land — the first work of what would become Rest-Stop-Ranch. Source: Deed Bk 28196/463; town assessor record.
Milestones
2009
Clearing the Land
Mary and Karl start clearing invasive brush from the four acres.
2011
The First Trail
They finish a 0.1-mile wheelchair-accessible trail of compacted crushed stone in Margaret’s memory, and hold the first Holiday Stroll on it.
2015
A National First
With state funding, we start the Memory Café in the Garden®. Marianne, the first guest to try the trail in a wheelchair on her own, tells us what to fix next.
2017
Fifty Roses
Peggy’s gift in Margaret’s memory pays for 50 roses along the trail. Marlene from Danvers, of the New England Rose Society, shows Mary how to care for them.
2019
A Nonprofit
Rest-Stop-Ranch becomes a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
2020
A Paved Trail
After two years of Karl laying pavers, the front garden trail is paved. Georgetown Building Supply and Karen and Dave Moniz donated some of the pavers.
2022
Two More Gardens
For Mary’s 50th birthday, donors give $10,000 to finish accessible trails through the Secret Garden and the Cottage Garden. Up to 50 lilacs can now be reached by wheelchair.
2025
292 Visits
The International Lilac Society gives us its Award of Merit, and a $5,000 Reeve Foundation grant makes the winter bonfires easier to reach by wheelchair.
The Land Today
A farm divided. The once-ninety-acre Brooktrail Farm was steadily reduced over the twentieth century — beginning with a 1930 taking for the Route 95 corridor — until only the four-acre house lot remained.
Today. Karl and Mary have turned the old farm roads and rough ground of those four acres into seven garden areas joined by wheelchair-accessible paths, with more than 100 roses, the Lily Pond Overlook, and the Caretaker’s Cottage, where a fire is going in winter.
Property history compiled from recorded deeds (Essex South District Registry of Deeds), the Topsfield assessor’s record, the 1910 Walker atlas, and the Historical Collections of the Topsfield Historical Society. The present house dates to Johnson L. Walker’s 1909 construction; the colonial-era Hood homestead stood separately, by Hood’s Pond.
Our Board of Directors
Mary E. MacDonald
Co-founder and President
Mary cared for her mother, Margaret, through FTD. She is an interfaith chaplain who leads the 1-on-1 Spiritual Care sessions and private 2-hour Respite Retreats, and as a user-experience designer she sets the width, slope, and rest stops of our trails. M.A. Pastoral Ministry; B.A. Psychology and German.
Karl Ackerman
Co-founder and Treasurer
Karl built the trails, laid the pavers, and has tended the gardens for more than fifteen years while working full-time in tech. He manages the finances and long-term capital planning, and has personally matched community donations for new accessible garden projects.
Karen Moniz
Secretary
Karen has volunteered at the Memory Café for years and is a certified Care Partner specializing in dementia. As part of the Topsfield Dementia Friendly Team, she helped make the Topsfield Fair the first Dementia Friendly Fair in America.
John Coulon
Director
John is a retired local public health officer who has volunteered here since 2010, when he met Mary and Karl through Topsfield Town Hall. His favorite job is mowing the front garden lawn.
Volunteer, Join, or Donate
Rest-Stop-Ranch is run by Mary, Karl, a four-person board, and volunteers from 14 to 80-plus. Every program stays free because people give their time and money.