Mr. Shields decided to take his favorite pinup girl with him to the grave. A stout wooden beam apparently holding up the ceiling of the mausoleum stands in the way of the view of this window; Father Pitt has therefore stitched this picture together from two separate pictures, and the seam is obvious. But the window is unusual enough that we can tolerate a substandard photograph. —UPDATE: Old Pa Pitt has accidentally found out quite a bit more about this window. It is called “The Spirit of the Water Lily,” and it was designed by the famous stained-glass artist William Willet for the home of one of Pittsburgh’s rich industrialists, George I. Whitney. How it came to be in this mausoleum Father Pitt does not know. The design for the window was printed in the February, 1904, issue of the Booklovers Magazine, and we note that, if this drawing is accurate, the window is currently installed backwards:
3 responses to “Stained Glass in the Shields Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery”
J w Shields is my great uncle. My great grandmother is buried in the mausoleum. I am trying to find the parents of James W. Shields and his sister( my great grandmother) Isabelle C. Shields Jones . Thank you for the photos. Any suggestions?
Without doing a lot of research, Father Pitt may not be able to help you. But his curiosity would not allow him to leave the problem without some research. Concentrating for the moment on Isabelle C. Shields Jones, we find that the Homewood Cemetery records show she was interred in this mausoleum in 1939:
http://www.thehomewoodcemetery.com/content.php?cat=genealogy&page=records
(Search for Isabelle Jones.)
The Pennsylvania death-records index shows that her place of death was McKeesport:
http://www.thehomewoodcemetery.com/content.php?cat=genealogy&page=records
You may be able to get a copy of the death certificate, which usually lists the parents of the deceased, by following these directions:
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/research_topics/3162/ancestry_com_pennsylvania/1575348
And then, if that works, you could follow the same steps for James W. Shields.
[…] William Willet, was designed for the home of George I. Whitney of Pittsburgh; it is now in the Shields family mausoleum in the Homewood Cemetery, and how it got there Father Pitt and Dr. Boli have not been able to find […]