THE LADIES OF SECTION 14

In Homewood Cemetery rest remarkable women who made their stories part of Pittsburgh’s, writes Marylynne Pitz

In death, as in life, Pittsburgh’s Gilded Age millionaires wanted their homes to make a statement. Empire building in Homewood Cemetery, however, required restraint, especially if you were high on a hill, the preferred vantage point for 1 percenters.

Weepy epitaphs carved in stone were neither fashionable nor needed.

“Your name should speak for itself,” said Jennie Benford, director of programming for the Homewood Cemetery Historical Fund. As she climbed a lush green hill, Ms. Benford noted that the simple Doric mausoleum where Christine Miller Clemson is spending eternity with Daniel Clemson most likely was ordered from a catalog.

Daniel Clemson, a wealthy steel executive and one of Andrew Carnegie’s original partners, was enthralled when he heard his future wife sing at Third Presbyterian Church in Shadyside.

The young immigrant singer from Glasgow, Scotland, had talent but needed training, so an anonymous donor paid for her voice lessons. As a successful performer, she toured with conductor Victor Herbert and was applauded by enthusiastic European audiences that often included royalty.

Today, the gifted contralto is among the trailblazing women who make the cemetery’s Section 14 worth a visit. Ms. Benford, an enthusiastic historian, has begun offering tours of this neighborhood dominated by large stone mausoleums.

The pioneering women gathered here in perpetuity include a palm-reading criminal psychologist who married a Spanish count, a wealthy suffragist who held fundraisers at her Shadyside mansion, a resolute reformer who gathered support for Pennsylvania Gov. Gifford Pinchot and an African-American nurse who also ran a Hill District business.

Section 14 opened in 1890, the decade when smart, spirited American women began wearing sportswear so they could ride bicycles, play tennis and march in the streets while demanding the right to vote.

Christine Miller Clemson was enjoying acclaim as a professional artist in Europe when duty called. When the regular soloist at Third Presbyterian retired, the pastor offered her the job. Trading good career wages for a liturgical singing stint meant a major pay cut but she returned to Pittsburgh. Predictably, attendance at Sunday services swelled.

In 1918, she and Daniel Clemson, a widower, traveled to Chicago, where they married. On their first wedding anniversary, he revealed to his bride that he was the anonymous benefactor who had paid for her voice lessons.

During World War I, Christine Miller Clemson joined actress and singer Lillian Russell on the Allegheny County Courthouse steps. Dressed in military uniforms, the women sang to raise money for war bonds.

Christine Miller Clemson sang “Peace, Perfect Peace” and “Now the Day is Over” during Henry Clay Frick’s funeral in December 1919. She endeared herself to Pittsburgh soldiers when she sang for them at Camp Lee. With her husband, she was active in the Pittsburgh Association for the Improvement of the Poor.

After her husband died in 1936, she downsized drastically. She sold Highmont, the couple’s 50-room mansion at Fifth and Shady avenues, and moved to the Schenley Apartments in Oakland.

In 1942, a local newspaper story carried her picture and described her volunteer work at Presbyterian Hospital. A member of the hospital’s board of directors, she also served by answering phones, taking messages for doctors and winding sutures. In a 1956 obituary, The Pittsburgh Press praised her as a humanitarian and singer whose concerts were memorable.