A moderately Art Deco interpretation of Gothic. In his brief visit, Father Pitt was not able to find any dated Armstrong headstones nearby, but the style would probably date this monument to the 1920s or 1930s.
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Armstrong Monument, South Side Cemetery
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Bald Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery
A strikingly dignified Art Deco mausoleum that adapts the setbacks of Deco skyscrapers to the classical formality of a cemetery environment.
We have more pictures of the Bald mausoleum in an earlier article.
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Blumenthal-Mendelson Monument, Tree of Life Cemetery
Art Deco can be a very dignified style when applied with taste. The classical symmetry of this monument is combined with a streamlining that would look good on the front of a locomotive.
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Mervis Family Plot, Tree of Life Cemetery
The Mervises have a fine Art Deco monument with a shining lamp at the top (and a very artistic wasp nest in one corner). It was probably put up in 1941, when Joseph A. Mervis died, or possibly before, when the plot was purchased.
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Haas Mausoleum, St. Michael’s Cemetery
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.
Angels adorn the bronze doors.
