Ibrealla Loomis Phipps died in 1888 at the age of 26, and that is probably about the date of this very 1880s recording angel.
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Phipps-Loomis Angel, Allegheny Cemetery
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Weber Angel, Homewood Cemetery
A flower-strewing angel steps forward from a rustic boulder. The first Weber was buried in this plot in 1887, and that may be about the date of this monument.
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Morris Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery
A vigorous sculpture with a swirling upward motion appropriately illustrates the quotation from 1 Thessalonians 4:14. The quotation itself, however, is ungrammatically mangled in the inscription. The full verse is this: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” The stonecutter, doubtless believing he had detected the King James translators in a solecism, inscribed, “They which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him.” But the translators were right and the stonecutter was wrong; he has made nonsense of the verse.
George W. Morris, the first occupant of this mausoleum, died in 1899; it may have been put up for him some years before that.
Father Pitt assumes that the base of the sculpture is supposed to represent a cloudy whirlwind, but it could also be a pile of dirty laundry.
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Frew Monument, Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh
Oil baron William Frew died in 1880, and this monument was put up in 1882. The sculpture, of the mourner-and-consoler genre, is a very good one, if a little chunky in the 1880s manner. Father Pitt does not know the meaning of the motto “Straight down the middle,” but he suspects it has something to do with drilling for oil. He would be grateful if someone could enlighten him. UPDATE: A kind comment from Lisa Speranza (see below) tells us that the words refer—of course—to golf, a game of which Mr. Frew was very fond.
The monument is surrounded by mature boxwoods, the scent of which old Pa Pitt finds delightful. Some people hate it.
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Fisk Monument, Allegheny Cemetery
The statue on top is so similar to Isaac Broome’s statue on the Mary J. Lippincott monument that Father Pitt wonders whether this is a copy. Even the base is almost, but not quite, identical.
This statue is missing her wand, an attribute of which Father Pitt never deduced the use.
