A popular style; there are several similar statue-on-pedestal monuments in this cemetery. This one has been covered with inscriptions on every available space, the base being pressed into service when there was no more room on the sides.
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Schertzinger Monument, St. Michael’s Cemetery
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Benz Monument, St. Michael’s Cemetery
The original pictures that went with this article went missing when the server that hosted them shut down. These pictures are from September of 2022. A fine example of the mid-Victorian marble monument, and very well preserved: the industrial atmosphere of Pittsburgh in its full-tilt hell-with-the-lid-off phase was generally not kind to marble. As with many of the older monuments in St. Michael’s, a German Catholic cemetery, it bears inscriptions in German. (But an inscription from after World War I is in English.)
The Nusser monument in the South Side Cemetery is identical, except that there is also an ornate pinnacle; perhaps this one has lost its top.
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Kubler Monument, St. Michael’s Cemetery
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Almost all the monuments in St. Michael’s Cemetery are standard items from monument catalogues. (A century or so ago, you could even order cemetery monuments from Sears Roebuck, the way you ordered everything else from Sears.) This one is almost certainly a standard item, too, but it is a very unusual one, probably one of the more expensive monuments in the cemetery. The curving text of the inscriptions is a distinctive touch. There is space for a good many more inscriptions than were ever cut. The Kublers were born in “Lorraine, France”—an interesting distinction that is a little hard to interpret. When the Kublers were born, all of Lorraine belonged to France, but when they died a large part of it belonged to the German Empire, the fruit of the disastrous (for France) Franco-Prussian War.
Some of the pictures here were taken in 2014, and the rest in 2022. We also have some more recent pictures of the Kubler monument.
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John Schmotzer Mausoleum, St. Michael’s Cemetery
A good example of the standard-issue rustic mausoleum of the early to middle twentieth century, and a good example of the fate of many mausoleums in smaller cemeteries. The doors are gone; they were probably bronze, and doubtless were sold for scrap by the thieves. Whatever glass there was in the back is also gone. The mausoleum is now open to the elements; but, of course, it is so solidly constructed that it can probably remain that way for centuries.
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Joseph Rahe Monument, St. Michael’s Cemetery
An unusually fine Pietà tops this monument, which stands at the edge of a steep hill with a stunning view of the Monongahela valley below.
