Pittsburgh Cemeteries

A simplified Doric mausoleum in the style of the early to middle twentieth century. The stained-glass menorah is doubtless a standard catalogue item, but it is well executed.

Here is a family plot that seems laid out for ancestor-worshiping rituals. The massive classical monument dominates the plot from the rear; in front of it is a classical altar where the descendants could kneel and offer their sacrifices. The older members of the family are named Schwartz; at about the time of the First World War, the younger ones adopted the easy Americanization of Black.

A simplified Doric mausoleum without entablature or any of the usual fiddly bits. It dates from 1885, but one could be forgiven for supposing it a twentieth-century modernist’s interpretation of classical style.

This unusual round Doric temple, unlike a closed mausoleum, invites cemetery visitors to step up and under the roof. There the names of the Baum family members interred here are inscribed in an open stone book on a lectern.

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.

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.

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.

Almost certainly modeled after the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, this is about as archaeologically correct as Doric architecture gets in Pittsburgh. It is one of the few peripteral mausoleum designs you will find in Pittsburgh cemeteries, peripteral meaning that it has columns on all sides.