On the matter of nothing really being sacred, Ashland Pennsylvania police are looking for whoever painted the Mother’s Memorial red at some point recently.. While the paint vandalism has no pinpoint date as to when it occurred, it was noticed this week. It has received some attention not only from local fishwrappers but also WNEP.
Any tips that can be provided to police would be appreciated by them.
Just about everyone in the region has a theory as to who the red paint perpetrator is.. Local kids? Bored adults..? Tourists! Travelers! Mom haters!
….it’s worth pondering, of course: Centralia tourists are keen on painting just about everything as they desperately search for signs that a mine fire or town existed.. They have lots of extra paint. Perhaps they decided to move away from Graffiti Highway and take on the Mother’s Memorial instead..
In case you are not appreciative of what the Mother’s Memorial actually is, here is something ‘herstory’:
1937: A committee assembled during the annual Ashland Boys Association homecoming looked for a way to honor Ashland mothers. They agreed it should be a bronze sculpture based on James McNeil Whistler’s famous 1871 painting, “Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother” — aka “Whistler’s Mother.”
The effort proceeded as part of the Work Projects Administration (WPA), the government’s busybee program that left a legacy of strange monuments in town squares across the US. On Sept. 4, 1938, the 8-ft. tall statue on a three-ton granite slab was unveiled by two local mothers — at 88 and 91 years,
Ashland’s oldest. According to a plaque at its base, the statue officially “honors all mothers, past and present, and is the only one of its kind in the country.”
