Pioneer Mom with Scary Child
Frackville, Pennsylvania
The 15-foot-tall Pioneer Mom, or "Pie Woman," is an unusual rendition of frontier feminity. A somewhat masculine-looking lady in a bonnet holds a pie and gazes blankly towards the highway. The girl child clutching the woman's dress is even more peculiar, with the face of a 40-year old man, dragging a decapitated doll across the statue platform.
Roadside rumor has it that the statues were built in the 1960s by Rodman Shutt (who made other memorable statues), and originally stood at the Pot-O-Gold Diner in Hamburg, Pennsylvania. After that establishment closed the statue moved to Frackville, and stood outside of Granny's Motel beginning in 1986.
A 2008 repainting in brighter colors reminded us at the time of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village, and then drew comparisons to The Handmaid's Tale.
Granny's was bought by a budget motel chain in early 2022, which wanted to bulldoze the statue. Instead, it was bought by the local Anczarski family, which hauled Mom and Child to an empty lot next to their downtown Frackville thrift store. The Anczarskis repainted Granny and the child in April 2023, but left the doll in her original colors. It is hoped that the statue will find a permanent new home somewhere nearby.