The statue on top is so similar to Isaac Broome’s statue on the Mary J. Lippincott monument that Father Pitt wonders whether this is a copy. Even the base is almost, but not quite, identical.
This statue is missing her wand, an attribute of which Father Pitt never deduced the use.
A somewhat unusual octagonal shaft, with four scrolls for inscriptions at the base. It is difficult to date this monument, because there are inscriptions for deceased Baileys from before the Allegheny Cemetery existed; but if we take the first inscription on the front scroll as implying that the monument was built for Robert Bailey, then he died in 1849. New inscriptions in various styles were added well into the twentieth century, but many of them have been obliterated by time. Robert’s, however, is still partly legible:
ROBERT BAILEY
BORN IN CANAWAY
COUNTY DOWN IRELAND
MAY ? 1780?
DIED ???? 1849
Cemetery records confirm the date 1849.
A doe wanders among the graves in the Allegheny Cemetery.
Sarah Coleman Miller is marked as “Founder of Womens Hospital of Pittsburgh.” If this is a predecessor of Magee-Womens, it is interesting to note that the institution still cannot afford an apostrophe after all these years.
The monument itself is unique, a romantic impression of a classical arch. The details are classical, but the arrangement of them is entirely fantastic, like a half-remembered dream of an ancient temple.
This diminutive structure looks a bit like a toy mausoleum. The names of generations of Straubs, Anshutzes, and Walkers are on bronze plates on the door, and from the shadows on the bronze it looks as though at least five Straubs have fallen off. One must assume that they were all cremated, and that this is actually a little closet full of urns.
