This is almost the archetype of the Slavic tombstone, with a fine folk-art crucifix to decorate it. With the help of Google, Wiktionary, and other Internet resources, we translate the Polish inscription thus:
HERE LIES MARIAN FABISZEWSKI DIED MARCH 14, 1924. — Say a Hail Mary for Me
What a cosmopolitan place the little mining town of Castle Shannon must have been! We very seldom run across an inscription in French around here, but here we have one mixed in with the Italian and Polish and Slovenian tombstones. A translation:
TO OUR LAMENTED MOTHER HERE RESTS MATHILDE LALAUSE DEPARTED FEBRUARY 1, 1915 AT THE AGE OF 62 YEARS
This husband and wife spent more money than average on this monument; it is a large variation of the cross-topped round-shouldered monument popular with Slavic and Italian immigrants, with the addition of a crucifix in relief on the cross. But the inscription has eroded so badly that Father Pitt has not been able to read it. They are buried next to a woman named Anna Scmicz, whose stone is inscribed in Polish, and sometimes old Pa Pitt thinks he can make out the same name on this stone, but he is not sure.
The photographs, however, are still instantly recognizable, though one is damaged. It is possible that Anna Scmicz is the woman in the photograph, since this monument appears to have only one name on it, in which case this is the monument for her husband, whom she outlived and was buried next to some time later.
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.