This advertisement from an 1844 city directory shows us what was happening in the monument business in the rapidly growing Western city of Pittsburgh or Pittburg (it was just about equally likely to be spelled either way). Beginning in the 1830s, local stonecutters were displaced by a mechanized monument industry that produced much more professional-looking work—unfortunately in limestone (“marble” to the trade), so that the inscriptions erode much more quickly than the old craftsmen’s work in yellow sandstone.
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.
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.
A young wife of Louis Kubler, presumably a son of Frank J. and Cathrene.
A three-year-old granddaughter; her parents are not memorialized on this monument.
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.
The stained-glass window of the Holy Family is a very good one, though it was probably a standard catalogue item.
A family plot of matching graves that is missing one important tenant, or at least the inscription for him.
Lina B. Nickel, who died in 1916 at the age of 29 or 30, is buried here under an inscription identifying her as “MY WIFE.” But the matching headstone is blank, suggesting that Mr. Nickel (whose name was almost certainly William; see below) is not buried here. A husband in mourning might think that of course he would never marry again and would be buried next to his late wife when he died, but a year or two or five go by, and he begins to take a more realistic view of the rest of his life. Or it is quite possible that the whole matching set was ordered when the two sons died in 1912.
A standard flower-dropping mourner. The wrists are always a weak point in this design.
Two young sons, William Jr. and John, died in 1912, very probably of the same childhood disease. From the name William Jr. we can deduce the father’s name.
This angel might also have been dropping flowers, as we can guess from its downward gaze and the eroded bouquet.
