A monument for a girl who died at the age of fourteen. The weathered and damaged angel is probably much more picturesque in this condition than it was when it was new.
The base includes a photograph that is badly faded, but with the help of modern image-editing software we can restore a recognizable image.
This is almost the archetype of the Slavic tombstone, with a fine folk-art crucifix to decorate it. With the help of Google, Wiktionary, and other Internet resources, we translate the Polish inscription thus:
HERE LIES
MARIAN
FABISZEWSKI
DIED MARCH 14, 1924.
—
Say a Hail Mary for Me
Google Translate identifies the inscription as Croatian. The translation would be something like this: “Here lies my husband Michael Paczak Dubos. Born 29 Apr 1874. Died 15 Mar 1927.” The Byzantine cross is used by both Russian Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Christians, but in Pittsburgh the Byzantine Catholics make an especially big deal of it.
Visitors from all over the world come to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery to pay homage to one resident: Andy Warhol, son of Andrew and Julia Warhola (whose monument we see in the background). They come bearing gifts, and it is rare to find the otherwise unassuming monument undecorated. Campbell’s Soup cans are de rigeur, of course, but people who know something about Andy also bring rosaries. Andy Warhol was, in his own strange way, a devout Byzantine Catholic to the end of his life.
This Byzantine cemetery in Castle Shannon is near the Washington Junction station, where the Blue and Silver Lines meet. It is not at all hard to find Warhol’s grave in the cemetery. Just look for the cameras, and they will point the way.
It would have delighted Warhol to know that, as he rests in peace, his eternal slumber is livestreamed to the whole world.
What a cosmopolitan place the little mining town of Castle Shannon must have been! We very seldom run across an inscription in French around here, but here we have one mixed in with the Italian and Polish and Slovenian tombstones. A translation:
TO OUR
LAMENTED MOTHER
HERE
RESTS
MATHILDE LALAUSE
DEPARTED
FEBRUARY 1, 1915
AT THE AGE OF 62 YEARS
