Mol and Mel’s connects horses and health

By Justin Tiemeyer - Contributing Writer 

30 June 2025

A crowd forms in the gathering area near the entrance to Legacies Assisted Living on North Rodgers Court in Caledonia. Residents socialize as they take their seats, but they are also looking around for the main attraction. Even the nurses seem intrigued, leaning against the wall with arms crossed, intermingling with the seniors and cracking jokes. This room is great for puzzles, DVDs, and catching up on life, but today it is used for a meet and greet with a pair of horses.

The first of the two quarter horses to enter is Tex, accompanied by handler Molly Wade. Tex, who originally went by the name, JD’s Alamo’s Moonshadow’s Black Gold, is a 31-year-old horse who knows the routine. Some folks joked before the horses showed up about a need for someone to follow them around with a shovel, but Tex has learned to stomp a leg on the ground to signal that he has to go “potty.” Jack, 15, is accompanied by Molly’s sister Melanie. Together, these 19-year-old entrepreneurs form Mol and Mel’s Miracle Machine.

Jen Groters is the director of the Michigan Horse Driving School in Saranac, and she recalls the moment of inception for Mol and Mel’s Miracle Machine. Groters initially met the Wade sisters while running a camp for people with special needs. The 19-year-old twins both have Down syndrome. “Special needs or not,” Groters said, “at our camps, kids figure out projects themselves.”

That independent spirit surfaced in Mol and Mel one afternoon when their mother, Patty Wade, was late picking them up from camp. This gave Groters an opportunity to spend some extra time with the girls, so she asked, “What do you want to do?” The response: “I want to own my own business.” Groters, who was only trying to pass the time for the next 15 minutes, accidentally uncovered a life’s ambition, and that is how Mol and Mel’s Miracle Machine came to be. “Because I was late,” Patty said, “this whole thing happened.”

Mol and Mel’s Miracle Machine is not an independent business, not yet at least. It is currently one of a couple addendums to the Michigan Horse Driving School 501(c)(3)’s mission, and it exists to do just this, bring miniature horses into assisted-living facilities, where seniors can interact with them. Some, like a 101-year-old resident, nicknamed “Grandpa,” are thrilled. “Next week, you’re bringing in the Budweiser Clydesdales, right?” Grandpa joked.

Not everybody, though. A woman sits in the corner with her hands in her lap, completely uninterested, as Jack comes over to meet her. She raised quarter horses before moving to Legacies, and from the look on her face, she would be just as happy to forget the hours she spent mucking stalls and sweating.

Legacies Assisted Living is a 20-bed facility, but not everybody felt like joining the crowd, so Bonnie Franz, a life enrichment coordinator at Legacies, guides the horses and crew to apartments that look like individual houses from the outside. Franz works here in Caledonia, but she lives in Lowell and regularly attends Lowell United Methodist Church. After an introduction from Franz, the horses walk right into the living rooms of interested seniors.

It is not surprising that Mol and Mel’s Miracle Machine spun out of the Michigan Horse Driving School, because Groters’ pride in these animals is contagious. Take 31-year-old Tex, for instance. Groters points out that quarter horses like these might only live seven to nine years in the wild, and when she was young, horses rarely made it to 20, but with the help of better nutrition, a horse like Tex can still expect many more years of activity. Her oldest horse, she noted, is 42.

On the way out, Tex and Jack start snacking on the lawn like the out of doors is going out of business. When asked if this is just a nervous habit, Groters responds, “This is green grass. It’s like someone asking, ‘Do you want ice cream?’”

The horses enjoy their “ice cream,” and the Wade sisters pause to savor the smiles they have just put on the faces of the residents at Legacies Assisted Living. The name, Mol and Mel’s Miracle Machine, sounds like a 19th century snake oil act, where a carnival barker sells a crowd on the idea that fizzy water can cure all that ails you. The difference here is that equine therapy, from simple visits to riding lessons, has empirically-proven health benefits.

The broader question, which warrants more reflection, is what exactly the miracle behind Mol and Mel’s Miracle Machine is. Is it Molly and Melanie Wade themselves, the horses, or is it the work they do to help people in their community? Smart money is on “all of the above.”