Pittsburgh Cemeteries – Page 85 – The Art and Architecture of Death

Laura Adams Monument, Voegtly Cemetery

A romantic (and diminutive, though the picture does not convey the small scale of it) tombstone for a little girl who died at not quite ten years old. The single rose and foliage are still well preserved. It is in or next to the Voegtly family plot, and the inscription is in German; but the name Adams is not very German at all. Perhaps this was a granddaughter of Mathias Voegtly; he might have had a daughter who married outside the Swiss-German community.

Father Pitt has not sorted out the whole history of the Voegtly Cemetery. The style of the tombstone is right for 1864, and it may have been moved from the original churchyard in Dutchtown when the cemetery on Troy Hill was established. Not every grave was moved; in fact, more than seven hundred were left to be discovered under a city parking lot. If this was moved, it suggests that the little girl came from a family with money (like the Voegtly family).
Rev. George J. Kredel Monument, Voegtly Cemetery

A monument to a pastor of the Voegtly Church and his son, both killed in a railroad accident near Altoona in 1864. The polished-granite monument seems to be later than that date, and probably dates from after the time when the Voegtly Church moved its cemetery from the churchyard in Dutchtown to the top of Troy Hill.
Wilder Mausoleum, South Side Cemetery

Father Pitt hopes the Wilder family (who are doubtless kind and indulgent people) will forgive him for saying that this is without a doubt the ugliest mausoleum in the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area. It looks like a thing built by a contractor who had never built, or perhaps even seen, a mausoleum before, and thought of it as a sort of garage for coffins. But it is distinctive. There is nothing else in the South Side Cemetery that looks remotely like it; and, since it occupies a prominent plot at the intersection of two drives in the cemetery, there is no missing it.
Frank-Klee Mausoleum, West View Cemetery

A simple Doric mausoleum with extra space for a large family. The stained glass inside is very good, except that (in Father Pitt’s opinion) the wreath-and-swag decoration rather spoils the effect of the naturalistic forest and stream.
John Park Hickman Monument, Bethany Cemetery

John Park Hickman, volunteer soldier, died in Virginia just after Lee’s surrender ended the Civil War. We do not know whether he died of injuries sustained in battle, but the lack of any mention of a particular battle suggests to Father Pitt that he was one of the many victims of disease. His monument is not large but splendidly romantic in a fashionably 1860s way.

Laura Adams Monument, Voegtly Cemetery

Rev. George J. Kredel Monument, Voegtly Cemetery

Wilder Mausoleum, South Side Cemetery

Frank-Klee Mausoleum, West View Cemetery

John Park Hickman Monument, Bethany Cemetery