Grace Mundy

 Grace Mundy was buried in the Watch Tower Society’s Rosemont United Cemetery in Ross Township, Allegheny, in Section T, Lot 33, grave number A1. Note that this grave number corresponds with modern records. The original numbering as found on the sides of a pyramid monument (removed in 2021) squeezed in more grave spaces than were realistically available.

The plan below shows the whole of Section T, Lot 33, but with just the names of those buried before the pyramid was put in place.

The East face of the pyramid monument showed the names of Grace Mundy, Lorena M Russell, John Perry, H L Addington and Flora J Cole.

When the pyramid was removed in 2021 it was replaced by nine flat grave markers pictured below.

Grace is named in the top left hand corner.

Who was Grace Mundy?

The plan above shows that Grace was buried in the same row as Charles Taze Russell, but at the farthest corner of the site. According to her death certificate she died on December 4, 1914, aged 25, and the interment took place on December 8. She was the first to be buried in this special area. Sadly, she made the front page of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle when she was fatally injured.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle for December 4, 1914 carried the heading, WOMAN IN FLAMES RUSHES INTO STREET – Miss Grace Mundy Perhaps Fatally Burned – Neighbors Beat Out Fire.

The story tells how the street was greeted by a “flaming apparition” as Grace rushed into the street, and several bystanders were burned trying to extinguish the flames. Grace’s father was away at the time, her mother was ill in bed, and she had been cleaning feathers in the kitchen in their home on the fourth floor of 539 Throop Avenue, using gasoline. She got too close to the stove and the fluid ignited and set her clothes on fire. She managed to get down three flights of stairs and out into the street but was severely burned. She was taken to St John’s Hospital, where she died.

The newspaper makes no connection with the Bible Student movement, but the death certificate confirms that this is the Grace who was the first to be buried at the Society’s plot. She may have been a colporteur, and her mother, Sarah, was a Bible Student. They had lived in Throop Avenue for three years at the time of the accident. They were not mentioned by Menta Sturgeon when he detailed who was part of the regular Bethel family in January 1913. (See trial transcript Russell vs. Brooklyn Eagle, 1913). The 1910 census has the family living in New Jersey, with the father a carpenter and Grace’s younger brother, George, a machinist in an auto factory. Grace was born in Missouri, and the census has her down as a step-daughter, with the original surname of Wilson.

Grace’s step-father, Peter Mundy, only survived her by a matter of weeks. In January 1915 he died of pneumonia and his funeral was held in the local M.E. Church. Her mother, Sarah, died in January 1917, and according to the funeral notice in The Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ) for 8 January 1917 her funeral was held in the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Grace’s brother George, born in 1891, lived on until 1970.

Grace and some of her family must have been heavily involved in the work of the IBSA for her to be given the ‘privilege’ of being the first to be taken all the way from New York to the United Cemeteries in Pittsburgh. No other family members were to be buried near her.

Excerpted from GRAVE MATTERS – published in 2024 by Lulu. See: https://jeromehistory.blogspot.com/2024/12/grave-matters.html