Pittsburgh Cemeteries

REBECCA RITCHEY
departed this life,
December 27, 1838.
Aged 42 years 11 months
& 4 days.

Here is a work by a stonecutter whom we shall call the Master of the Italic Months, from one of the most distinctive features of his style. He also writes the name of the deceased in all capitals (not small capitals), and he places a comma after the words “departed this life.” He adds an ornamental dash below the inscription. His lettering is not nearly as neat as that of the Master of the Erratic Centering, who also cut many stones in the Hiland Cemetery; but, on the other hand, his centering is a bit better.

This is what a typical Jewish cemetery looks like in Pittsburgh: straight rows of graves with foot-wide alleys between, each grave given just enough space for the coffin and no more. They look like crowded urban neighborhoods, and they are designed to make the most use of the least space.

For some reason, a large number of Jewish congregations in the city bought land for cemeteries in Reserve and Ross Townships north of the Allegheny. Many of them are not marked on maps, but a satellite view will reveal the distinctive tight rows of graves.

Because of frequent vandalism, many Jewish cemeteries are gated and locked, with “NO TRESPASSING” signs on the gates—a sorry reminder that, even today, it is not always easy being Jewish. This cemetery, however, was open (Father Pitt would never walk past a “NO TRESPASSING” sign without permission of the owners).

This cemetery is notable for the large number of stones with embedded photographs, and for a good number of rustic stumps crowded in with the rest of the monuments.

Ridgelawn Cemetery in Reserve Township began in 1888 as St. Peter’s Lutheran Cemetery. The oldest section is in the far back, and here it reveals its distinctive feature, one that definitely makes it worth a visit: it preserves the style of the old rural cemeteries, with stone-fenced family plots carefully maintained. Even the Allegheny Cemetery, our most famous cemetery of the “rural” movement, has got rid of most of the stone walls, and those that remain are often broken down or half missing. Groundskeepers hate them, after all, and it is much easier to keep the cemetery looking neat if the walls go away.

So we generally see these old family plots in small half-overgrown cemeteries where no one has cared enough to remove the walls. But here the walls are not only preserved, but scrupulously maintained. Paradoxically, Ridgelawn Cemetery may give us a better idea of what the Allegheny Cemetery looked like a century ago than the Allegheny Cemetery itself does.

The Volz plot is typical. It is surrounded by a low stone wall; it has an entrance with the family name on the threshold; and it has a large family monument toward the rear surrounded by individual graves.

In
memory
of
NANCY OWENS
who departed this life
july 31st 1824,
aegd 19 years

Two more works of the stonecutter we identify as the Master of the Erratic Centering, whose erratic centering and aversion to capitalization are both on display here. Both Nancy and Samuel died as young adults. Were they a young married couple, or were they brother and sister?

In
memory
of
SAMUEL OWENS
who departed this life august 2nd
1827 aged 28 years

In spite of the damaged statue, this is an unusually beautiful monument, and the inscriptions are very good examples of German stonecutting in Pittsburgh.

Georg Kirner
Born Hoeffingen, Baden,
April 17, 1831.
Died in Pittsburg
May 12, 1872.

The language does not seem to be standard German (note, for example, the spelling “Maÿ” rather than “Mai”). Is it some Alemannic dialect? Perhaps someone more familiar with German can help old Pa Pitt by identifying the dialect and translating the other inscriptions:

So leb denn wohl so zieh dahin
Die Erde wartet dein
Geh in des Todes stille Ruhe-Kammerein
Shlaf eine sanfte süse Ruh’
Die Hand der Liebe deckt dich zu,

In his transcription, Father Pitt has made the assumption that a horizontal line over an N or M doubles the letter.

Jeh empfand an deiner Seite
Lebensfroh der Erde Glück
Jinner geh mir dein Geleite
Einen frohen augenblick.

The base of the statue is marked “Mein Gatte” (“My Husband).” The statue is probably ordered from a monument-dealer’s catalogue, with the simple Gothic letters already on the base. They are not nearly as elegant as the beautiful lettering by the local stonecutter.

An update: Old Pa Pitt suspects that the dialect is some form of the Alemannic spoken in Baden.

For literally decades it has been a small local scandal: the once-beautiful Minersville Cemetery, a German Lutheran burying ground in the Hill District, was overgrown with weeds and vandalized, and no one would step forward to take care of it.

Now, at last, a group of Lutheran volunteers has taken on the cemetery. With the help of a bit of money from the cemetery’s upkeep fund and some more from Pittsburgh Area Lutheran Ministries, they have cleared the weeds, righted as many of the monuments as possible, and built a fine new iron gate to keep contractors with pickups from driving in to dump their garbage. (Pedestrians without garbage are still welcome.) The cemetery is beautiful again, an oasis of quiet repose in the middle of Herron Hill.

Some work still to be done: toppled and broken monuments gathered on one of the cemetery drives.

An 1829 tombstone typical of the Hiland Cemetery. We can identify this particular stonecutter by two very distinctive traits: his erratic centering and his avoidance of capital letters and punctuation. We shall call him the Master of the Erratic Centering.

An 1821 tombstone that appears to be another work of the Master of the Erratic Centering, whom we identify by his erratic centering and his aversion to capitalization—note, for example, the spelling “december.”