Breaking Amish: Meet Mary Schmucker, Abe’s awesome, hard-drinking mom

Breaking Amish: Brave New World‘s breakout star is definitely Abe’s hard drinking mom Mary Schmucker who’s been shunned from the Amish community.

Mary caused some trouble in the first season by showing up to visit her son in New York to confront him about his decision to leave. She later tells him if he marries for Rebecca, who he has a child with, and had been seeing for a while, he won’t be accepted by the Amish, but the strange thing is that Mary is allowing herself to be filmed on camera, which is also forbidden by the Amish. Had Mary left the Amish already, like the rest of the original Breaking Amish cast?

Whether or not Mary had already left, she’s definitely leaving now, and she’s taking her daughter Katie Ann, her jars of beef, and her vodka with her. Once she crashes at the casts’ Sarasota house, she immediately asks for some cranberry juice for her vodka, and seems to be ready for a cocktail any time, any place, leading her daughter-in-law Rebecca to say in confessional about her mother-in-law “Mom drinks way too much! Good grief.”

She also takes over the kitchen in the house, getting into a bit of a tussle with Kate, who likes to use olive oil instead of butter to make eggs. “Olive oil smells like rotten eggs,” Mary notes, “It makes my stomach turn just thinking of it.”

Mary Schumker encounters a lot of firsts on her Florida journey, including talking to black people “up close” for the first time (and telling them about her love of vodka and cranberry,) and hugging her son Abe for the first time. According to them, in the Amish community physical affection just isn’t shown in families, even in private.

She aso got hit on in a Sarasota bar she went to while most of the kids were in Miami. One of the bluegrass musicians, who was scruffy and had his shirt on inside out tried unsuccessfully to get her to let him buy her a drink, but Mary was unimpressed. She said in confessional interview that he could have “slicked up” a little better.

Later Mary reveals that she tried to leave the Amish when she was 17, and ran away to join the carnival. She faced severe economic hardships because she didn’t have a high school diploma or a GED, and ultimately decided to return home instead of living on the streets.