Third Visit to the Wegner Grotto

I've posted twice before about the grotto created by Matilda and Paul Wegner in Cataract, Wisconsin (in 2008 and 2011).

During my most recent visit, I saw new details I hadn't noticed before, and then found two related sites away from the grotto itself.

 

In my first post I showed a photo of the ecumenical Glass Chapel, but this time I noticed the roof...

 

...and the individual illustrations of the buildings of varying religions that decorate the building's sides.

I noticed much more than I had before that the Peace Monument is built into a naturally existing hillside, and that parts of its surroundings are stone instead of concrete. It looks as though parts were naturally occurring stone, while other stone was probably put in place by the Wegners, such as these steps that descend past the chapel and into the Monument. I really like how they inlaid these white tiles to highlight the steps and make them more visible to people using them.

I don't think I've shown this bird house before...

Check out this milky green glass from the bird house post.

 

I couldn't resist recording all four sides of this piece, each one illustrating a different house design in broken glass. (Click to enlarge the image.)

I've mentioned the Wegner's ship before...

...but this time I noticed that at the very top of the ship, inside the glassed-in compartment, there are glass-bottle "people." 

The first new site I found on this trip was a cemetery a few hundred yards down a dirt road from the grotto. It contains the Wegners' graves.

Paul Wegner died in 1939, so Matilda created his headstone and (I infer) she also created her own stone. His grave has the years, while hers does not. 

The second site I discovered on this trip was in Sparta, Wisconsin, at the Monroe County Local History Room and Museum. They had information on the grotto and the Wegners, including this photo from 1934:

And they had a model train layout with many buildings from Sparta and surrounding communities — which included the Wegner Grotto.

 

The model shows the Glass Chapel and the Peace Monument...

...and the ship. It also portrays what the Wegners' house looked like, which was a super-bonus. (In that location at the real grotto, the outline of the house is shown in bricks embedded in the ground.)