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Very sad news from the real-life television world this week:
Mary Schmucker is the patriarch of the popular TLC series Breaking Amish and passed away on Friday, March 28th at her Pennsylvania home.
She was 65 years old.
Mary’s son Andrew spoke to TMZ, confirming her mother’s death and told a celebrity gossip website that after Mary was temporarily hospitalized for several days, she finally lost her battle with colon cancer.
Andrew also told the outlet that the rest of the family has been notified of Mama Mary’s death … and added that he is on his way to Pennsylvania from his residence in Arkansas.
Mary was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2022 and had surgery afterwards.
Two years later, last November, her stepdaughter announced that the star had hospice care. In other words, she was primarily focused on staying comfortable for the rest of her life.
Mary made her TLC debut in Season 1, beating Amish in 2012, then returned to the Amish in 2014 to return to the spinoff series return.
The program followed a group of Amish individuals who left the traditional community to experience life in an external non-Amish world.
Schmucker remained a central figure until he announced he was leaving the show on Instagram Live in March 2022.
“I’m not back on TV, but a lot of other people have come back. I’d like to go back on TV, but there are too many issues that don’t work for me,” the Pennsylvania native said at the time.
“I want to go back, but I’m coming back like we’re doing now. We feel that after the show we should have a story about where we are, what happened to us, and more.
Just a month later, Mary revealed her cancer diagnosis.
“I just want to update a bit,” she wrote in April 2022 via the Facebook group for selling private Tupperware.
Schmucker, who has been the trigger for this procedure, has briefly returned to Facebook in August 2024 to reorganize a post on how schools teach children how to write cursive writing.
She also reposted a video of Tiktok from her stepdaughter Rebecca Schmacker, seeking help in fundraising for her relative, who lost her one-year-old son after a fight with mental issues.
In November, my daughter Rebecca wrote online:
“I’m making prayer requests to mom. She hasn’t felt good for the past few weeks, can’t hold back anything and has struggled to eat. She’s at the hospice now…
“Her pain is so bad, they’re helping it. If possible, kill her a positive message and pray that she’s comfortable and painless. Thank you!”
I express my sadness to those who knew and loved Mary Schmucker. I hope she can rest in peace.
