Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Category: St. Michael’s Cemetery

  • Kubler Monument, St. Michael’s Cemetery

    Kubler monument

    The Kubler monument is one of the most extravagant in this cemetery, and an interesting example of what must have been the most up-to-date modern design when it was installed in 1884.

    Kubler
    Frank J. Kubler and Cathrene Kubler

    Note the place of birth: “Lorraine, France.” This is doubtless a political statement, but Father Pitt does not know exactly what it states. In 1884 and 1891, the dates when these inscriptions were added, part of Lorraine belonged to Germany: it had been conquered in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and would remain German territory until 1918. We don’t know whether the Kublers came from that part or from the part that remained in France. They bear a German name, and they belonged to a German Catholic congregation where German was often spoken (St. Michael’s, in whose parish cemetery they ae buried), but they were eager to be identified as French.

    Mamie C. Kubler

    A young wife of Louis Kubler, presumably a son of Frank J. and Cathrene.

    Catherine E. Kubler

    A three-year-old granddaughter; her parents are not memorialized on this monument.

  • Haas Mausoleum, St. Michael’s Cemetery

    Haas mausoleum

    An attractive Art Deco design with more traditionally Gothic bronze doors that have survived because this mausoleum is right at the cemetery entrance, where people might tend to notice two men with a pickup truck fiddling with a mausoleum in the middle of the night. (Note the fence spike in the foreground: old Pa Pitt apologizes for that, but it’s sometimes hard to see what’s in the picture when the camera has to be held above a fence.) This is one of only two mausoleums in St. Michael’s Cemetery, and it is the grander of the two.

    Stained glass of the Holy Family

    The stained-glass window of the Holy Family is a very good one, though it was probably a standard catalogue item.

    Angel in bronze

    Angels adorn the bronze doors.

    Bronze decorations
    Corner view

  • Statue of Christ in St. Michael’s Cemetery

    Statue of Christ

    St. Michael’s was a German parish, but it must have had a small Hungarian contingent as well, or it shared its cemetery with a Hungarian parish. This statue of Christ blessing visitors as they enter the cemetery (it is placed in the middle of a circle at the entrance) stands on a base with the inscription EGO SUM RESURRECTIO ET VITA in Latin and three other languages: German, English, and Hungarian.

    Statue in circle
    I am the resurrection and the life
    Ego sum resurrectio et vita
    Hungarian and German
    Rear of the statue
    Full length

  • John Schmotzer Mausoleum, St. Michael’s Cemetery

    This is the only mausoleum in the cemetery [correction: it is one of two; note the kind comment below], a typical small rusticated-stone mausoleum. Originally it would have had bronze doors, but those are usually stolen from an unguarded cemetery and sold to scrap dealers who obviously have no idea where two men with a pickup truck might have got a large door-shaped chunk of bronze.

  • Calvary Group, St. Michael’s Cemetery

    Note: The pictures in this article disappeared with their image host, but we have added a more recent picture from 2023. The monument, dated 1888, commemorates priests of St. Michael’s parish.

    This grouping more notable for its position than for its artistic quality (which is quite good but not extraordinary); it stands at the edge of a steep slope with a panoramic view of the Monongahela valley below. St. Michael’s is a German Catholic cemetery, so the inscription (“I am the resurrection and the life…”) is in German (with “May they rest in peace” Latin, of course).