Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Stumps

  • Bollenberg Stump, Homewood Cemetery

    Bollenberg stump

    The Woodmen of the World, still selling life insurance today under the name WoodmenLife, guaranteed every member a grave monument in the form, appropriately, of a stump. The stump program ended about a hundred years ago, but a number of these stumps were installed in Pittsburgh cemeteries. This one marks the plot of the Bollenberg family, with a separate log for Frederick Bollenberg and an unnamed infant son. Mr. Bollenberg died at the age of about 32, and it is possible that he and the child died from the same cause.

    Frederick Bollenberg, 1874–1906; Infant Son
    Bollenberg, gone but not forgotten
    Woodmen of the World seal

    The seal of the Woodmen of the World, whose local chapters were called “camps.” “Dum tacet clamat”: “Though he is silent, yet he cries out.” (The Woodmen usually translate this motto as “Though silent, he speaks.”)

    Bollenberg stump

  • Hugh H. Wallace Stump, South Side Cemetery

    Hugh H. Wallace stump

    A stump with scroll inscription marking the grave of a member of the Improved Order of Heptasophs, which probably entitled him to this stump.

    Inscription

  • Abraham Stump, South Side Cemetery

    A sumptuous stump with peeled bark for the inscription and a bonus fern. Joseph Abraham died in 1861; his wife Mary Ann died in 1879, and the stump probably dates from then or later.

  • Klicker Family Plot, Union Dale Cemetery

    Stumps are common in cemeteries; logs less so, but not rare. This symmetrical arrangement of stumps and logs is unique in Pittsburgh, as far as old Pa Pitt knows.

  • Chambers Stump, South Side Cemetery

    A more artistic stump than usual, with a particularly well-done inscription.