...and Richard Thomas too

Pittsburgh is a city dominated by a handful of names. The current, contemporary business brands vie for dominance alongside those which have been here much longer, such as Heinz, whose sauce bottle lights up the sky. The city was founded on the work of a few individuals - Carnegie, Mellon and Frick among them and it was their legacy we planned to visit today.

We took a similar route out of the city as we had when driving to Fallingwater, but changed tack and stayed on this side of the river today.

So we didn’t cross the bridge, but drive high above it, looking down on where we had been previously. It was a dull, overcast morning and on this, our last day here, we were glad we’d left indoor things to do.

Our first stop was part of the University of Pittsburgh, for we were headed for the tall “Cathedral of Learning” where we hoped to see the “Nationality Rooms”. Not easy to find - no signposts or clear directions but we made it from the car park in the dry. It was as we left that the heavens opened and we had to run for shelter!

The views from the 36th floor were spectacular and we looked down to our parked car there by the university complex that bears two of those three names: Carnegie Mellon University.

Our next diversion was in one of the numerous museums, galleries, concert halls and theatres along this road that bear the name of Andrew Carnegie too. Let’s say the man left monuments, shall we?

From there, we made our way to our last stop of the day, bearing the third name: Frick. Henry Clay Frick had been a partner of Andrew Carnegie’s and his former home was open for visiting, as was his daughter’s art collection.

The temporary exhibit at the Frick Art Gallery right now is of Katherine Hepburn’s dresses, so we had another name to drop - oh and that of Hardy Amies, who had completed the exquisite tailoring of this silk ensemble for her.

But of all the names that were uttered today, one of them made us catch our breath.

Richard Thomas.

We were sitting in the Welsh room of the Cathedral of Learning which was set up as a small chapel and were listening to a commentary with information about each feature of the room. Attention was drawn to the clock in the corner, the face of which had letters instead of numbers - and they spelled out the name of the maker, Richard Thomas. The same name as my Father in Law.

For us, that was worth any number of Mellons, Carnegies and Fricks.