Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Epitaphs

  • William H. Krauth Monument, Prospect Cemetery

    A splendid bilingual zinc monument—German on one side, English on the other. As usual with zinc monuments, it is as legible now as it was when it was put up. This is style no. 156 from the Monumental Bronze Company, with an interesting choice of panel inserts.

    Father Pitt was not able to find this poem anywhere on line. His attempt at a translation follows the transcription, but anyone who knows German better is invited to correct it:

    Liebe Eltern ich muss scheiden,
    Denn mein Jesus ruft mir zu;
    Nun erlost von allem Leiden,
    Gönnet mir die susse Ruh.

    Tröstet euch, wir seh’n uns wieder,
    Dort in jener Herrlichkeit,
    Singet ihm die frohen Lieder,
    Bleibet doch mit Gott vereint.

    Dear parents, I must depart,
    For my Jesus calls to me;
    Spared by good fortune from all suffering,
    He allows me sweet repose.

    Be comforted; we shall meet again,
    There in that glory,
    Sing joyful songs to him,
    Linger still united with God.

  • Elizabeth Flowers Monument, North Zion Lutheran Church Cemetery

    A particularly well-preserved monument in the romantic style of the 1860s, with two poetic epitaphs.

    She was a mother good and kind
    While she with us did stay
    Life is short to all mankind
    God’s call we must obey

    Come, children, to my tomb and see
    My name engraved here.
    Remember, you must come to me.
    Be like your mother dear.

  • Robert and Abigail Hopper Monuments, Bethany Cemetery

    A pair of matched urn-topped ,marble monuments—matched, but not quite. It looks as though Robert’s heirs could not get exactly the same design when he died three and a half years after his wife. The epitaphs were clearly inscribed by different artists. (The tree in the background had just fallen the night before Father Pitt visited, fortunately doing no damage to the monuments.)

    The epitaph:

    Dearest Mother, thou hast left us,
    And thy loss we deeply feel;
    But ’tis God that hast [sic] bereft us.
    He can all our sorrows heal.

    The epitaph:

    It is not death to die,
    To leave this weary road,
    And midst the brotherhood on high
    To be at home with God.

  • Richard Coulter Tombstone, Bethany Cemetery

    IN
    memory of
    RICHARD COULTER
    who departed this life
    May 4th 1821, Aged 22 years
    ———
    Long, long expected home, and lo:
    Home he has scarcely come,
    Till he is summon’d and must go
    To his eternal home.

    This is a fairly well-preserved tombstone from nearly two centuries ago, and that is of course interesting enough. The most interesting thing, however, is the poem, which is from a collection of poems by the very obscure James Meikle, this one being headed “On a gentleman who died after his return to his family from foreign parts, after an absence of twelve years.” The poem itself is dated 1768, but it was kept in manuscript until after the poet’s death in 1799. The only edition of the posthumous poems of Meikle Father Pitt has been able to find is one published in Pittsburgh in 1819, two years before the death of Richard Coulter; so that we know with near certainty that whoever specified the epitaph on this stone had read it in this particular book.

  • Goodman Y. Coulter, Jr., Monument, Bethany Cemetery

    GOODMAN Y. COULTER, Jr.
    Died in N. Orleans
    March 1, 1851
    interred here
    March 21, 1851
    in his 21 year.
    —
    To the young
    He being dead yet speaketh.

    A good example of the style of the 1850s; it must have looked very modern beside the traditional tombstones of ten years earlier. “He being dead yet speaketh” is a quotation from Hebrews 11:4.