Tribute to Marjorie Kittredge

Marjorie Kittredge’s kindness, caring, and philosophy “everyone can do more than they think they can." touched every part of her life.

She was born April 10th, 1924, in New York City to Marjorie Cochran and Frederick A. Vietor. As soon as she could walk, she was taught to ride horses by cavalry instructors at her father’s legendary Squadron A. After private schooling at the Brearley School, she attended Vassar where she majored in zoology and minored in psychology and sociology. Following her father’s belief “that if you are privileged to have a good education then you are obliged to use it to educate someone else”, Marj served in Korea with the American Red Cross, an amazing thing for a young woman to do in the 1940's.

On February 14th, 1948, she married Charles J. Kittredge. In 1950, Marj, her husband and two oldest children, Lucinda and Charles, moved to Windrush Farm in North Andover, Massachusetts. They bought the farm with a 1734's Saltbox home and 198 acres for ~$25,000. Before too long, Ellen, Marj's youngest daughter, Folly, Windrush's Thoroughbred foundation mare, and a few polo ponies joined the family. Marj taught her children to ride.

Lucinda and Charles

But Marj understood the benefits that horses and riding could bring to people with physical and psychological problems. So she retrained Folly, and set about developing riding therapy program.

In 1964, Marj founded Windrush Farm with three horses, all retired polo ponies. Marj partnered with The Gifford School for Emotionally Disturbed Children, then located in Cambridge, MA,to initially help five emotionally challenged/learning disabled students.

A few years later, Marj co-authored the book Aspects and Answers: A Manual for Therapeutic Horseback Riding Programs. This book is still the guidebook for the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association (NARHA), which Marj co-founded in 1969. NARHA went international, and recently changed their name to Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International (PATH Intl.), which handles education and accreditation of riding centers, and certification of riding instructors.


Marjorie and Mandy with Marjorie's
NARHA Founder's award and
EFMHA 10th Anniversity Thank you as Founding Member.

As a pioneer in therapeutic riding, Marjorie's professional accomplishments are too extensive to list. She was instrumental in establishing accreditation and certification standards for riding therapy centers and for instructors. She served as President, Trustee, and Board Member for the Competition Association of NARHA, and was awarded many awards for her significant contributions to therapeutic riding.

To protect their beloved Windrush as a wildlife habitat, water source, therapeutic riding and recreation reserve. Marjorie and her family enabled a partnership between Windrush Farm Therapeutic Equitation, Inc., the Trust for Public Land, and the towns of North Andover and Boxford, MA to put Windrush farm land in perpetual conservation easement with Essex County Greenbelt association.


Marjorie and Ellen Scott
at the Windrush Farm Conservation Celebration

Windrush 50th Birthday Slide Show

More Windrush Tributes

Dr. Peter Spiers

Hippotherapy and Therapeutic Riding