On the grounds of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, a bronze Ronald Reagan sits at a picnic table, ready to bite into potato pancake, just like he did back in 1984.
The unusual statue commemorates a moment from Reagan’s campaign for a second term. He visited a Polish-American Festival in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where shared placki, or potato pancakes, with other attendees, and gave a speech. During his remarks, Reagan said “thank God for Pope John Paul II,” who was the Polish-born pope at the time.
The statue commemorating this moment wasn’t created until many years after Reagan’s visit to Doylestown. It was unveiled in 2006, after a project to create the monument was spearheaded by local building contractor Joseph Laudanski. The woman sitting beside Reagan is Jennie Gowaty, the host of the 1984 Polish-American Festival.
There is one crucial item missing from the sculpture—the potato pancake itself. Laudanski feared that the placki would block Reagan’s face, so they left it out of the sculpture.
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