Tag: Mausoleums

  • Luchsinger-McKain-Smiley Mausoleum, Rosemont, Mt. Hope, & Evergreen United Cemeteries

    A smallish but still thoroughly Egyptian mausoleum; Father Pitt guesses it is fairly late in the era of the second Egyptian Revival. Inside is a simple but effective stained-glass view of a pyramid.

  • Sander Mausoleum, South Side Cemetery

    A plain mausoleum of rusticated stone, this one is exceptional in the South Side Cemetery for retaining its bronze doors; almost all the other mausoleums in the cemetery are now missing their doors, which can be sold as scrap by thieves to dealers who apparently never wonder why someone would happen to be carrying a large ornate door on the back of his truck. There is even a bit of almost-intact stained glass in the back.

  • 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.

  • Flower Mausoleum, Allegheny Cemetery

    This mausoleum from the early 1920s is an interesting and unusual design: a little bit Egyptian in shape, but without Egyptian details. The gorgeous stained glass inside is full of nautical references, which must refer in some way to the William S. Flower who is recorded as the first burial here in 1924. Does anyone know their significance? A Dr. William S. Flower was a dentist here in the early twentieth century, but Father Pitt cannot guess what sailing ships, hourglasses, and classical dolphins have to do with dentistry.