One wonders whether the neighbors think of the Straub mausoleum as bringing down the tone of the neighborhood. Among the architect-designed classical temples of the Pitcairns and Clemsons and so forth, here is a little Romanesque mausoleum that seems to be a dealer’s stock model; the William H. McCarthy mausoleum in Calvary Cemetery is identical, with the addition of a cross to suit Catholic taste. One likes to imagine the spirits of the very rich reacting the way they would react if they were still alive and their new neighbor announced that he was going to put up a very tasteful manufactured home on his lot.
The statue on top seems to be a version of that very popular flower-strewing mourner who appears in many of our cemeteries, usually handless if she is at ground level; compare the Aul, Potts, Alexander H. King, Baxmyer, and Nickel monuments.
One response to “Theodore F. Straub Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery”
[…] style and the sooty blackness of the stone make this mausoleum look particularly Pittsburghy. The Theodore F. Straub mausoleum in the Homewood Cemetery is identical (but without the cross), so this was probably a […]