The Allegheny Cemetery Mausoleum is now advertised as the Temple of Memories, because our taste has gone in that direction. It’s a very large communal mausoleum, built in 1960, and walking through the doors feels like going through a time portal into the end of the Eisenhower era. By far the most striking feature of the mausoleum is the series of stained-glass windows by Willet in Philadelphia and Hunt in Pittsburgh. They are some of the best modern stained glass in Pittsburgh, and they commemorate great triumphs of religious literature and music. We have a lot of large pictures here, so we’ll put them behind a “read more” link to avoid weighing down the front page.
Amahl and the Night Visitors, by Gian Carlo Menotti. (For some reason, unlike other windows, this one does not include the composer’s name.)
Bach’s Passion According to St. Matthew.
The Bay Psalm Book.
Favorite hymns, with Pittsburgh history to left and right. (The picture is big enough to see the details if you enlarge it.)
“The Star-Spangled Banner,” by Francis Scott Key. Old Pa Pitt was not willing to move the table lamp for this picture.
Handel’s Messiah.
Haydn’s Creation.
Mendelssohn’s Elijah.
“Shall We Gather at the River?” by Robert Lowry. This window, a tribute to camp meetings and old-time country religion, does not mention the composer, but it mentions famous revivalist Dwight L. Moody and his associate Ira L. Sankey.
Next, a series of four windows devoted to the Psalms:
The two large windows above and below are in a different style; they may be the ones by Hunt Studio of Pittsburgh, which was headed in a more modernist direction.
These are not all the windows in the mausoleum; Father Pitt did not have time for every one of them. He will return for more pictures soon. But don’t miss the Stephen Foster window, documented in detail at Pittsburgh Cemeteries.
