Amrhein Crucifix, St. Peter’s Cemetery (Arlington)


Two of these mass-produced iron crucifixes from the 1880s can be found in St. Peter’s Cemetery [Correction: After another walk through the cemetery, we have found at least four]. Their weakness as monuments is that the individualized letters fall off, though “Hier ruhet” is molded in the metal and perfectly legible. Fortunately there are other Amrheins buried in the same plot with legible stone monuments, so we can be confident that the letters AMR—I- represent AMRHEIN. The first name (-ACK-B) is probably Jackob. The birth and death dates are also illegible, though we can make out the decade of death as 188-.

The epitaph is perfectly legible, because it is cut in a stone base:

Ruhe sanft in deiner Gruft
bis dich Jesus wieder ruft.

Rest softly in your grave
till Jesus calls you again.


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