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What Man Hath Wrought!
IV
f-^ioneer ^yFjotker
In this continuation of his remar\ab]e series of articles on sculptury. W. Phimister Rowley, L.S., M.F.T., chooses the wor\ of A. Phimister Proctor in Kansas City's Penn Valley Par\. This beautiful carven tribute to the women of the west made a tremendous impression on the professor, who always did thin\ women were wonderful, anyway, particularly a couple of telephone operators he \nows.
THE EXQUISITE sculpture group which stands at the foot of the Liberty Memorial Mall is in reality a tribute to all the pioneer women who played their heroic part in the winning of the west, although it was inspired by the life of Mrs. Sarah J. Birchfield Vanderslice.
In 185-1 Mrs. Vanderslice with her husband and little son, Howard, migrated from Kentucky to Kansas, probably passing the very point where the statue now stands on their way from the inconsequential little landing station on the Missouri river to the thriving city it served, Westport. That was in the heydey of '"Westward Ho!" when the gold and land rushes to the fresh lands of the West brought the migration of families
which resulted in the establishment (if civilization through the Great Plains area.
The hardships and rigors of the frontier life so impressed themselves on the small lad that he v/as instilled with profound reverence for the fortitude of the pioneer women. Later he met Proctor and arranged for the creation of the inspiring marble group. That was after the lessons of industry and thrift taught at his mother's knee had enabled him to become a leader in the inland empire his mother had helped to create.
Thrift was characteristic of all these women of the west. It was at the knees of his grandmother, who also made the trek back in the covered wagon days, that this writer