A view of the Pioneer Mother statue, cast in bronze by Alexander Phimister Proctor, is pictured on an early postcard by E.C. Kropp of Milwaukee. High on a hill in Penn Valley Park, the pioneer figures symbolize not only the mother of Howard Vanderslice, who gave the statue to Kansas City and carefully chose the site, but of the hundreds of other mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers of native Kansas Citians, who arrived here in like manner, or by caravan or river steamboat. Sitting on her mount, the pioneer woman looks down on the Missouri and Kaw river valleys, where she may make her home, or travel on to distant places. On the stone base of the statuary is carved the biblical inscription: Whither thou goest, I will go and wither thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God. In the background of the picture, silhouetted against a rosy sky, is the Liberty Memorial. Kansas City Times. January 28, 1983
Reproduction (printing, downloading, or copying) of images from Kansas City Public Library requires permission and payment for the following uses, whether digital or print: publication; reproduction of multiple copies; personal, non-educational purposes; and advertising or commercial purposes. Please order prints or digital files and pay use fees through this website. All images must be properly credited to: "Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri." Images and texts may be reproduced without prior permission only for purposes of temporary, private study, scholarship, or research. Those using these images and texts assume all responsibility for questions of copyright and privacy that may arise.