Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Gothic

  • Frauenheim Family Plot, St. Mary’s Cemetery

    Frauenheim family plot

    Though old Pa Pitt tends to focus on individual monuments, there is an art to arranging a family plot. This one is arranged very artistically. Everything is made from the same stone, which is dark now, although that may be the result of a century and a half of heavy industry. A large Gothic monument dominates it in the rear, so that the family has no trouble finding the plot. Stone steps—superfluous from a practical point of view now, but there was probably a stone fence around the plot before the groundskeepers had their way—lead us up into the sacred precinct. There the Frauenheims lie in a row in their own matched beds. The earliest burial here seems to be Edward Frauenheim, who died in 1891, and that may be a good guess for the date of the main monument.

  • Donnelly Vault, St. Mary’s Cemetery

    Donnelly vault

    One of the most picturesquely mysterious-looking structures in the city of Pittsburgh: we can imagine it as the setting for an atmospheric scene in an old-fashioned Universal horror movie.

    This must have been one of the earliest interments in the cemetery, which opened in 1849, the year Henry Donnelly died. It is perhaps the most striking in-ground mausoleum in Pittsburgh. In the early and middle nineteenth century, these mausoleums cut into a hillside were the usual resting places of the rich; they are most often referred to as “mausoleums,” but sometimes as “vaults,” and perhaps it would be best to use that term, reserving “mausoleum” for a free-standing building. They fell out of favor by the 1870s or so, and proper mausoleums came into fashion.

    Left inscription
    Right inscription

  • Giuseppe Galie Monument, St. Anne Parish Cemetery

    Giuseppe Galie monument

    An unusual Gothic monument with an Italian inscription for a “brave American soldier” in the First World War. Unfortunately the photograph that was originally set in the stone has been lost. Note that the United States government misspelled his name (“Guiseppe” for “Giuseppe”) in his government-issue bronze plaque, below.

    Guiseppe Gale plaque

  • Office, Mount Lebanon Cemetery

    A winter view of this charming vernacular-Gothic house that serves as the office for the cemetery.

  • Illegible German Monument, South Side Cemetery

    This still-splendid Gothic headstone has eroded to the point where the name is illegible, at least in this light. We can just make out “Hier ruhet in Gott” as the first line, and at the bottom a birth date of 1829 (or perhaps 1828) and a death date of 1880. On the base is an epitaph that might almost be legible in different light.