This monument is eroding into illegibility, but as of now it is still possible to read the inscription if we catch it in a certain light:
FRED. W. HARTUNG.
DIED JAN. 111, 1903.
AGED 27 YRS.
AT REST.
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Fred. W. Hartung Monument, West Liberty Cemetery
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Bochert Monument, West Liberty Cemetery
A monument that probably marks the resting place of one of the pastors of the Mount Washington church to which this cemetery belonged, along with his wife and a brother-in-law. Although some monuments of the same period in this cemetery are in German, the English on this monument suggests that the Mount Washington congregation (unlike many German churches in other neighborhoods) was English-speaking by the turn of the twentieth century.
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Becker Monument, West Liberty Cemetery
A typical shrouded-urn shaft, this is actually one of the most expensive and elaborate monuments in this cemetery, which did not serve a wealthy congregation. It was good value for money, because its four faces (one is still blank) provided generous space for inscriptions, making further expense on individual grave markers unnecessary.
It appears that the Beckers had six children, five of whom died in childhood—three within two weeks in 1873, doubtless of the same disease. Mathilda, born in 1874, has a space left for a date of death, but it has never been filled in. Father Pitt chooses to interpret that as meaning that she lived a long and happy life and was eventually buried with her many loved ones somewhere else.
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Becker Monument, Beechview German Lutheran Cemetery
One of the grandest monuments in this half-forgotten cemetery, and one of the small number with German rather than English inscriptions. It memorializes a number of Beckers, but Jacob Becker is the only one who gets a “Hier ruhet” (“Here lies”). Are the Becker children buried elsewhere? If they are buried here, they must be among the earliest burials at this site.
Room is left to fill in the death date of Mathilda Becker, who was born in 1874 and is presumably still alive today at the age of 140. We may guess that Mathilda lived past 1907, at any rate, when the most recent date on the stone was carved. Jacob and Margaretha Becker had six children, of whom four died in early childhood, one died in adolescence, and Mathilda apparently survived them.
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Brick Monument, Beechview German Lutheran Cemetery
This strange combination of symbols stands out as the oddest monument in the not-quite-forgotten German Lutheran cemetery in Beechview. The cemetery is mowed a few times a year in a haphazard fashion, with many of the graves now entirely engulfed by woods, and most of the rest surrounded by weeds; we were fortunate to arrive when the weeds had recently been given their annual trimming. Fred and Carolina Brick are remembered on a scroll in front of a draped rustic seat on top of a cushion sitting on a tree stump, with a calla and a fern in front.
