The Art and Architecture of Death
A small stock mausoleum with indeterminate medievalish details. The cross-bearing angel on top has weathered into picturesque abstraction, looking far more otherworldly now than it did when it was new.
This is the Lillian Russell who was widely considered the most beautiful woman in the world in the late 1800s and into the 1900s. Her fourth and last husband was Alexander Pollock Moore, who owned the Leader in Pittsburgh. When she died unexpectedly in 1922, he gave her this tiny but tasteful mausoleum; he was buried with her later, but her name is the one above the columns, and the epitaph is hers: “The world is better for her having lived.”
Mrs. Moore’s opinion as “Immigration Inspector” was that Europe was sending us its worthless dregs; she is sometimes blamed for the restrictive immigration policies that followed, but it is very likely that the Harding administration appointed her to reinforce and not to create anti-immigrant prejudice. She injured herself in a very minor way on the trip back, but died unexpectedly from complications.
The initials of both residents are rendered in bronze on the doors.
The simple stained glass has suffered some damage, which should be fairly easy to repair.
Above, a forest of obelisks before a forest of forest; below, a pleasant stroll among the mausoleums and monuments.
Father Pitt thinks this picture of mourning and consolation (no one seems to know who the sculptor was) is one of the finest things in the cemetery, and fall colors add much to the effect.
A miniature Doric temple with “Christ is risen” in blackletter (with quotation marks) to Christianize it. There are inscriptions for death dates back to 1865, but from the style Father Pitt would date this monument much later—perhaps 1914, which is the earliest date after the 1860s.
A Victorian interpretation of Jeffersonian classicism. Domes are fairly unusual on Pittsburgh mausoleums, but this one works well with the “modern Ionic” design. The four large lamps on the corners are a bit much, in old Pa Pitt’s opinion; but the Singers didn’t ask him.
Two layers of bronze and one cheap padlock keep vandals out, or perhaps the Singers in.
The gorgeous and absurd Winter mausoleum was designed by John Russell Pope, architect of (among other things) the National Gallery of Art and the Jefferson Memorial. Almost exactly the same mausoleum was built earlier for F. W. Woolworth, the dime-store king; Emil Winter, the Pittsburgh banker, must have told Pope he wanted what Woolworth had.
An early-twentieth-century Doric mausoleum of the simpler style, without pediment or frieze, that was becoming popular then. The stained glass inside is a simple vine decoration.
A tasteful mausoleum shaped like the stereotypical Egyptian temple, but without Egyptian decorative details. The nautical-themed stained glass inside is extraordinarily good, and the bronze doors are also very artistic.
Two days ago Father Pitt wrote that the Vandergrift mausoleum was probably a stock model. Here is the confirmation: the identical mausoleum, but with different bronze doors. After so many years of wandering in cemeteries, old Pa Pitt has developed an instinct for these things.
