Like a stone mushroom, this is the visible outcropping of an underground mausoleum. Instead of a heroic statue of steel baron Benjamin Franklin Jones, we get a contemplative allegorical pair, one laying a wreath and palm of victory where his body is buried, the other looking upward hoping to find the real B. F. Jones in that direction. Old Pa Pitt hopes so, too.
We have more pictures of the B. F. Jones monument from 2014.
We also have some older pictures of the Nickel plot.
A family plot of matching graves that is missing one important tenant, or at least the inscription for him.
Lina B. Nickel, who died in 1916 at the age of 29 or 30, is buried here under an inscription identifying her as “MY WIFE.” But the matching headstone is blank, suggesting that Mr. Nickel (whose name was almost certainly William; see below) is not buried here. A husband in mourning might think that of course he would never marry again and would be buried next to his late wife when he died, but a year or two or five go by, and he begins to take a more realistic view of the rest of his life. Or it is quite possible that the whole matching set was ordered when the two sons died in 1912.
A standard flower-dropping mourner. The wrists are always a weak point in this design.
Two young sons, William Jr. and John, died in 1912, very probably of the same childhood disease. From the name William Jr. we can deduce the father’s name.
This angel might also have been dropping flowers, as we can guess from its downward gaze and the eroded bouquet.
Father Pitt thinks this picture of mourning and consolation (no one seems to know who the sculptor was) is one of the finest things in the cemetery, and fall colors add much to the effect.
The weathered face of this mourner looks all the more contemplative for the eroded vagueness of her features. The names of the various Pottses are inscribed on a broken column, a common metaphor for death in cemeteries. The various parts of the monument seem to have been ordered separately and with little regard for consistent style; we know from seeing her in other cemeteries that the flower-strewing mourner (whose hands always break off) was a standard catalogue item, and the classical column seems an odd match for the rustic base.
This statue of a wreath-bearing mourner looks more contemplative as she weathers into abstraction.
