Chapter from a new book

A recently published book (September 2014) GRAVE MATTERS is a detailed examination of the United Cemeteries in Ross Township, Pittsburgh. It contains a preface, introduction, fifteen chapters and two appendices, with numerous photographs covering well over 100 years of history. Further details are in the post that follows this one. But here is a sample chapter – Chapter 8 – THE PYRAMID.

8. THE PYRAMID

The above photograph from the early 1920s shows CTR’s grave, and then a large pyramid monument further down the hill, which remained in place until 2021. The pyramid was in the center of a special area that still belongs to the Watch Tower Society. In the middle of the photograph are two small grave markers (sadly long gone) for Arabella Mann and Mary Jane Whitehouse, both of whom died before the pyramid was installed. Their graves mark the front edge of the Society’s land. Their names were inscribed on the pyramid, and we will come to their stories in a later chapter. At the bottom of the hill was the cemetery office and superintendent’s house where John Adam Bohnet once lived. As cemetery superintendent he had enjoyed this large house as his home when the Watch Tower Society owned the whole cemetery. In front of the house in the photograph are several large grave markers. As noted earlier, these are not graves, but sample monuments for purchase.

The previous chapter outlined how the cemetery as a whole, including the superintendent’s house, had been sold to the adjoining Northside Catholic cemetery at the end of 1917. At the time the pyramid was installed, United Cemeteries was obviously still a very active concern.

In the 1920 census a family named Schweiger lived in the cemetery house. Frank Schweiger (aged 43 in 1920) was President of United Cemeteries, his brother Matthew (aged 51) was Cemetery Ground Keeper.

Some of the family were still there twenty years later in the 1940 census. Frank was now listed as cemetery foreman. When the family died they were all buried in United Cemeteries.

The next home on the 1920 census schedule was also a cemetery house, housing a family named Brunner. The father Joseph (aged 56) was a gravedigger, his son George (aged 32) a cemetery laborer, another son Aloysius (aged 26) was an undertaker’s chauffeur, and daughter Mary (aged 22) worked as a cemetery office clerk. It was a real family business. There was also a young son, Joseph (aged 14) with as yet no occupation. However, following the trail through the years young Joseph grew up to become Superintendent of the Northside Catholic cemetery in 1954.

Although they were listed next on the 1920 Cemetery Lane census, the paucity of houses strongly suggests the Brunners were further along the road alongside the adjoining Catholic Cemetery. Being much larger than United Cemeteries, it needed a larger staff. The whole family were buried there when the time came.

So although owned by Northside since late 1917, United Cemeteries continued as a separate business for decades.

Returning to the special plot in United Cemeteries that the Watch Tower Society retained, for over one hundred years, the main center of attention was the seven feet high pyramid in the middle of the site. The attention was not always welcomed. There was evidence on one side of the pyramid where something akin to a sledgehammer and a pyramid side once met. The monument was broken into on two known occasions. Following more extensive vandalism in 2020 the decision was eventually taken to have the structure removed. This story, an end of an era, is told in this book in chapter 14.

Here in this chapter we will consider how the whole idea of such a monument ever came about, and how it was executed.

Pyramid symbols were featured in the theology of the Bible Students from the start. The famous Chart of the Ages in Food for Thinking Christians (1881) and then The Divine Plan of the Ages (1886) used the symbol as an illustration of unique persons and groups within each Age, with their different roles and status. In addition, chapter 2 described how the Great Pyramid of Giza was understood to be God’s stone witness, not to replace, but to support scripture. If you were going to have a monument, this was a logical shape to choose in that era. It was not a grave marker, there was nobody buried inside it or beneath it; rather it was a communal monument for the whole site. Much as a war memorial records all the names of those remembered, so the pyramid sides were to record the names of all those buried on site. However, as noted in an earlier chapter, only nine names were ever recorded. We will consider the history of all nine persons in later chapters. But that had been the original intention.

The idea of a pyramid monument on site can be laid at the door of John Adam Bohnet, the cemetery superintendent of United Cemeteries. He suggested it to CTR in 1912. This was observed when the monument was installed. We will come to the account later in this chapter, but it was noted in The New Era Enterprise newspaper for February 10, 1920.

The same account was supported in the official program for the Watch Tower Society’s annual meeting held in Pittsburgh in October 1921. It gave a few more details:

Some have queried Bohnet’s claim of CTR’s approval for his design. Personally, the writer has no reason to doubt Bohnet’s word as such – in his published writings over nearly 30 years he comes over as an honest, sincere man; although the actual size and scale of the project may have grown a bit since CTR’s demise. CTR had requested in his will that his funeral service be very simple and inexpensive; so the finished edifice, even if for all the Bethel family, may have evolved into something a little more elaborate than a passing rough sketch from 1912.

Bible Students received more information about the plans when they attended conventions in Pittsburgh in January 1918 and 1919.

The 15 January 1918 St. Paul Enterprise reported on the convention held over January 2-6, 1918, and noted that “the special monument which has been ordered by the Society [for the cemetery], is not yet completed, so none had the privilege of viewing it.”

By the time of the 1919 convention report (covering 2-5 January 1919) a five foot deep concrete foundation was in place, reinforced with strands of barbed wire, constructed by Bohnet. Visitors were taken to a nearby marble works to see the work in progress. It was natural that as well as new cemeteries springing up off what was now called Cemetery Lane, some companies would also provide monuments to order. An artist’s impression of the finished production showed a pyramid with open books on its four sides, the pages designed to receive the names of those buried there. These would be headquarters staff (from “Bethel”) and traveling ministers (“Pilgrims”) along with their families. A space for J F Rutherford was already earmarked.

From the 1919 convention report

The 1919 report said they had been trying to obtain the right material for about five years (or since 1914) and the pink granite eventually used came all the way from Marble Falls City in Texas. The idea of trying to source appropriate materials since 1914 has a ring of truth about it because the first Bible Student burial took place on the special section of the Society’s cemetery site in December that year. The deceased, 25 year old Grace Mundy, was buried in one of the four corners of the site. Subsequent burials (apart from CTR’s own) followed this pattern, almost as if they were marking out the extremities of the site and working from the outside inwards when using it.

According to the Donatelli Company which took over the Cemetery Lane site in the 1960s, the original company chosen to build the pyramid was the Kohler Company, founded by Eugene Adrian Kohler (1865-1922). Eugene was born in Germany, came to America in 1892, was married in 1893, and was finally naturalised as an American citizen in 1917. He and his wife Lena had six children including Edmund Kohler (1894-1971), who joined the family business and eventually took it over. In the 1910 census Eugene is listed as Proprietor, Monumental Works, in Cemetery Lane.

Eugene died comparatively young from pulmonary tuberculosis, directly linked to his work as a stone cutter. He was buried in 1922 in the former Northside Catholic Cemetery, now known as the Christ Our Redeemer Cemetery, on Cemetery Lane. But it was Eugene who cut the stones for the pyramid. His son, Edmund, then sandblasted the sides to carve out the names of those buried nearby. Edmund’s history is summed up in census returns from 1920 through to 1950. In 1920 he is stone cutter (monumental works), 1930 he is letter carver (monument), 1940 he is letter cutter (stone cutting company), and 1950 he is proprietor (monumental business).

Picture of Edmund from 1927 newspaper and an undated business card. The business is described as: Edmund Kohler, Modern Cemetery Memorials.

When Edmund died, his obituary in the Tampa Tribune (Florida), 25 January 1971, stated the company’s title was Memorial Art Works.

In the mid-1960s, Edmund retired and the site was sold to another company, Fred Donatelli Cemetery Memorials. As noted above, they still operate there and we will come back to them in chapter 14.

Returning to the artist’s impression in the 1919 convention report, the design was to change slightly in its final execution. However, it had its four sides, each with an open book (a Bible) showing two pages. Each book had spaces for 48 names over the two pages, giving the total of 192 names; that is, if the site had been used as originally intended. Above each book was a cross and crown motif and the inscriptions noted in the Enterprise cutting above.

The four sides leaned toward the center and were anchored in place by a capstone. The edges were all designed to be sealed making a hollow whole.

The installation of the pyramid was completed in time to be given a full write-up in the 20 February 1920 issue of the Enterprise. The front page article was entitled “The Pyramid Monument on the Bethel Burial Lots.”

The account started with some facts and figures about the monument. It was made of Texas red granite that was “extremely hard to cut and is imperishable.” It measured “nine feet at its squared base and seven feet high in the clear from the ground surface.” A headstone for CTR made from Barre granite was shortly to be installed. In the sparsely populated area of the day, the monument was “visible for miles.”

A particular feature was the idea of buried treasure. The Enterprise story related:

“Within the monument is a hollowed stone, which contains a copy of all the Society’s literature, photographs of the Pastor, a copy of the Society’s charter and other data which some day in the not far distant future may perchance come to light, now effectively sealed up.”

Sadly, history would find that “imperishable” and “impregnable” do not mean the same thing.

What happened to it years later is detailed in a later chapter.

The article concluded with a fanciful comment that probably reflected how many people felt at the time:

“The Bethel lot will be sacred in the future when other lots in the place will be forgotten. And who knows the Ancient Worthies may someday stand reverently before the monument with bowed heads and read the names traced thereon!”

In reality, the Ancient Worthies would have had some difficulty. The years were not kind to the pyramid. The red coloration disappeared. The weathering of the monument and the way the light hit it made decipherment difficult. For example, an internet search of memorial inscriptions for this cemetery only yielded about three names for the pyramid as recorded by volunteer transcribers. If you go back to 1967, there was an article by George Swetnam entitled “A Man and His Monument” in the Family Magazine section of the Pittsburgh Press (25 June 1967, page 7). This had a line drawing of the pyramid and the writer listed eight names. But Swetnam was obviously struggling. Writing about CTR, he noted:

Of the seven buried, as he had planned, at least five were Pittsburghers, Arabella Mann, Chester Elledge, Grace Mound, H.L. Addington and Flora Cole. Mary J. Whitehouse and Lorena Russell (no known kin to the Pastor) may have Been but this is uncertain. Addington died youngest at 35, Miss Cole, eldest, at 78.

Grace Mound has to be an error for Grace Mundy. More curious, Swetnam mentions the name of Chester Ellidge. That can only be a drastic misreading for John Coolidge, which is surprising since a proper grave marker still survives on site for him. In the light of subsequent events, it is also unfortunate that Swetnam reminded the world there was something worth stealing inside the pyramid.

If we go right back to the February 1920 Enterprise article, it also lists eight names carved into the pyramid sides, but with the expectation of many more to follow. 

As noted above, in reality there were nine names in total, but that was all. Swetnam missed the name John Perry, and The Enterprise had an editorial glitch, because their missing name, Lorena Russell, was buried there back in December 1915.

Likely for reasons of space, some names on the pyramid sides were abbreviated with just surname and initials. However, the full names of the nine are:

North Face

   Arabella Mann

   Mary Jane Whitehouse

 

South Face

   Charles Taze Russell

   John Milton Coolidge

   (This name was easily missed by visitors because it was nearly at ground level)

 

East Face

   Grace Mundy

   Laurena May Russell

   John Perry

   Henry Lawrence Addington

   Flora Jane Cole

 

West Face

   (No inscriptions)

The next two chapters will discuss what is known about these people, and some have interesting histories and connections. For now we can dispel one potential for speculation: Laurena May Russell was not related to CTR.

However, that was it. For all the hype in the 1919 convention report and the 1920 Enterprise article, all the names were of people who had actually died before the pyramid was erected. No further names were ever added; and only two more interments took place until the 1940s. The site basically was just left fallow. Bible Students who left the Watch Tower Society would hold memorial services at CTR’s grave in conjunction with annual reunion conventions in Pittsburgh, but other visitors would be few. One dryly remarked in a 1929 convention report: “Either the friends have not been dying or the plan has been changed.”

The reason for the project’s abandonment is quite easy to see. When the construction of the monument got underway, J F Rutherford was in prison. Once he was released, the headquarters that had temporarily transferred back to Pittsburgh now returned to their proper home in Brooklyn. Pittsburgh may have been CTR’s original home, but it was no longer the Society’s home. Shipping bodies from Brooklyn all the way to Pittsburgh would be a nine hour rail journey and could be expensive. Also, Pittsburgh was unlikely to be near surviving relatives. The Brooklyn Bethel family soon had other more practical arrangements in New York on Staten Island. It made far better sense for headquarters staff and their families who died to be buried there. We will review these replacement arrangements in Chapter 15.

In addition, the concept of a pyramid as a suitable symbol was dropped by the Society in 1928.

Over the years of virtual disuse, some of the small headstones for others named on the pyramid disappeared; either through wear and tear, vandalism, or even just the encroachment of grass over them. Whatever the reason, only one early stone (apart from CTR’s) survives today. As noted above, it was for John Coolidge. It is a curiosity, because the stated plan was for all the markers (apart from CTR’s) to be of white marble, 12 inches across and 6 inch high, and very close to the ground. The Enterprise newspaper explained:

Early photographs of the markers for Arabella Mann and Mary Jane Whitehouse (below) show this was done, although the stones may have been a little larger to allow the base to be sunk into the ground, rather than just laid flat on the surface.

However, Coolidge’s marker appears to be higher out of the ground.

It may be that the stone for John Coolidge has risen or the earth has sunk in this area over the last hundred years. Because this marker stands out more, maybe that is why it has survived. We will discuss the history of John Coolidge in Chapter 10.