Another well-preserved zinc monument. Although Christina and Jacob Lawall died in 1876 and 1883, the front of the monument bears the date 1902, suggesting that their descendants replaced an original cheaper monument with this zinc creation after nineteen years or so. Two of the sides are taken up with custom inscriptions, leaving two other sides for the installation of standard-order symbolic panels.
A zinc monument similar, but not identical, to the Butzler monument in the Union Dale Cemetery; probably it came from the same company, and was built with many of the same standard pieces. Mr. Hoehn was born in “Alsace, Germany.” Alsace was indeed part of Germany in 1906, though it had been part of France in 1831. It is interesting to compare this to the Kubler monument in St. Michael’s Cemetery, which insists that Mr. Kubler was born in “Lorraine, France.” Is the difference in the fact that Mr. Kubler was Catholic, but Mr. Hoehn (like the Prussian rulers of Alsace in 1906) was Protestant?
One of the very oldest legible stones Father Pitt has found around here. There are much earlier graves in the churchyards of Trinity Cathedral and Old St. Luke’s, but they were marked with native shale, and time has obliterated the inscriptions. This stone is in excellent shape, and it makes old Pa Pitt nostalgic for the days when stonecutting, even for modest graves, was a craft, rather than a business providing uniform products to the deceased masses.
Fall colors surround a little country graveyard west of Cranberry.
