An update: Note the comment below requesting information on Bianca DeConciliis. Both Father Pitt and his commenter would appreciate the help, which can be left in the form of a comment on this article.
A life-size portrait of a beautiful young woman who died at twenty or twenty-one: she was born in 1921 and died in 1942.
Here lie the earthly remains of Pittsburg Phil, as George E. Smith was known when he moved to Chicago.
The Union Dale Cemetery is full of colorful characters who grew rich in shady businesses—Allegheny was a notoriously corrupt city, and indeed one of the arguments often advanced by advocates of “Greater Pittsburgh” was that Allegheny needed a dose of good clean Pittsburgh government. We pause for the requisite howls of laughter.
Pittsburg Phil was less shady than many: he merely bet on horses, and he made millions doing so. He was famously impassive and disdained corruption of any sort. He commissioned this mausoleum when he was still in his thirties, doubtless imagining many years of satisfaction ahead of him in knowing that his final resting place would be one of the most elegant in the Union Dale Cemetery. In fact he died in 1905 at the age of forty-three. The cemetery’s site has his whole story, which is fascinating.
The statue on top is a portrait of the man himself, clutching a Racing Form. It was commissioned by his mother some time after his death. The fact that his urns are always filled with beautiful plantings suggests that even now, more than a century later, there are people who treasure the memory of Pittsburg Phil. Inside is a simple but elegant stained-glass window.
This gorgeous Pre-Raphaelite window is at the back of the George J. Schmitt mausoleum in the Union Dale Cemetery, where the rich and influential of Allegheny City went to slumber in eternal style. Its Grail imagery seems to combine two forms of the Grail legend (the Grail as cup of the Last Supper and the grail as mystical jewel). The legend below reads, “Unto thee O Lord do I lift up my soul.”
Anyone worth knowing in the Union Dale cemetery has stained glass in his mausoleum. In fact, for a while in the early 1900s, it was fashionable to have a portrait of the deceased rendered in glass.
Here, for example, is Mr. William H. Walker (1841-1904), who was apparently a proud Shriner. His portrait has deteriorated a little, but not so much that you would not recognize him at once if you met him in the street.
Mr. William H.Teets (1845-1906; perhaps stained-glass portraits were offered only to men named William H.) has also deteriorated a little, but the portrait is still lifelike enough that you can almost feel the macassar oil.
Cherubs and lilies adorn the mausoleum of the McLain family. The cherubs’ faces seem to be executed with a degree of skill that the rest of the composition lacks; perhaps they were ordered from a catalogue.
The Enlow-Schwer mausoleum, built in the late 1930s, affects a more abstract symbolism.
Finally, a Good Shepherd window, which could probably be ordered in standard sizes from national dealers, adorns the Short mausoleum.
There are some who would question the wisdom, or the taste, of building an extravagant monument to the memory of the deceased. Father Pitt would like to suggest, however, that money laid out on art that is still giving us pleasure after a century is hardly misspent.
General Alfred L. Pearson
Died January 6, 1903
Prominent in Civil and Military Life
Took active part in 28 great battles and many skirmishes during the War of the Rebellion, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, Peebles Farm, Gettysburg, Wilderness, and Appomattox. Brevetted a major general at 27 years of age, and awarded a medal of honor by Congress for conspicuous bravery.
A worthy friend or foe.
General James Scott Negley was an important figure in the Union Army, but perhaps his greatest claim to undying memory is that his sister married Thomas Mellon, guaranteeing that the Negleys would be intertwined with the richest family on earth. This picture has been donated to Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, so no permission is needed to use it for any purpose whatsoever.
