Greenwood Cemetery ’14

Has it been five years since I first visited Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn for the first time? So it has. Green-Wood Cemetery remains one of the prettiest I’ve been to, even in drizzly early spring. No doubt the fall colors, as I saw them five years ago, are returning now.

Greenwood CemeteryThe main pond was a particularly lovely spot. This is the cemetery’s chapel, a 1911 Warren & Wetmore design; that firm also did Grand Central Terminal, among other things.

Greenwood CemeteryThis is Peter Brunjes, looking quite 19th century.

Greenwood CemeteryA casual search — “Peter Brunjes,” “Peter Brunjes New York,” “Peter Brunjes Green-Wood” — reveals nothing. Looks like he was a respectable citizen, even locally prominent, just to judge by his stone, which is probably the effect his family wanted. Sic transit gloria mundi, dude. Think you will be remembered? You will not. But so what?

The main entrance, dating from the 1860s, seen in a different light than last year.

Greenwood CemeteryIt’s a design by Richard Upjohn, who’s known for his Gothic churches.

The stone of one George Struthers, died 1849, aged 31 years.

Greenwood Cemetery

From Our Firemen, The History of the NY Fire Departments [all sic]: The “Harrington Guard” was a volunteer organization from Union Engine Company No. 18, and Henry Wilson was its captain. This volunteer company was in existence for a number of years, and one act while Mr. Wilson was in command should not go unrecorded. We allude to their noble conduct toward the first of the New York Volunteers who died after that regiment returned from the Mexican War.

“The late Sherman Brownell was called upon to deliver the address at the dedication of a monument placed in Greenwood by the Harrington Guard. That gallant fellow George Struthers was one of the first to enroll his name in Company 1 of the first regiment of New York State Volunteers.

“With them he went to Mexico, and remained among them until disbanded. He was one of the comparatively small number of the originals of the regiment that returned, and, although he escaped the ravages of the battlefield and returned to his friends, he was, like most of his companions, prostrated with the climate and exposure.

“He found, by disease contracted in Mexico, that he was fast failing. He went to the hospital, where his friends gave him all the attention that could be paid him. After remaining in the hospital for some time, he was called from his sufferings on earth.”

St. Lorenz Lutheran Church, Frankenmuth

For all its faux Bavarian tourist appeal, Frankenmuth, Michigan has an actual Bavarian history, beginning with St. Lorenz Lutheran Church, about a half a mile from crowded Main Street.

We were the only ones there for about half an hour around noon on Labor Day.
St Lorenz Lutheran Church FrankenmuthSt Lorenz Lutheran Church FrankenmuthThe church was founded at the same time as the town. “Pastor Wilhelm Loehe of Neuendettelsau, Bavaria, was inspired to establish a German Lutheran colony by Michigan circuit riders who requested aid in bringing the Gospel of Christ to Saginaw Valley Chippewa Indians,” the site’s historic plaque says, as reproduced here.

“Directed by Loehe in 1845, Pastor August Craemer and fourteen other immigrants began clearing forests in this area south to the Cass River. They built log houses and dedicated a log church on Christmas Day 1846. The second church, a frame structure, was erected in 1852 and enlarged in 1864, serving until the completion of the present church in 1880.”

A Cleveland architect named C.H. Griese designed the current Gothic Revival church. Traces of him are online, such as in the context of another Lutheran church.

We were glad to find out that the building was open. That’s not always the case, often for good reason. The interior’s handsome indeed.
St Lorenz Lutheran Church FrankenmuthSt Lorenz Lutheran Church Frankenmuth

St Lorenz Lutheran Church Frankenmuth

Excellent stained glass as well, signed by Hollman City Glass of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
St Lorenz Lutheran Church FrankenmuthPastor Loehe makes an appearance in glass.
St Lorenz Lutheran Church FrankenmuthI suspect this depiction of him is unique in all the world.

C.F.W. Walther, first president of the Missouri Synod, is also in glass. He’s probably englassed in other Lutheran churches.
St Lorenz Lutheran Church FrankenmuthThe settlers came to the Saginaw Valley, built their homes, farmed the land, attended St. Lorenz, and when the time came, were buried in its churchyard.

St Lorenz Lutheran Church Frankenmuth cemetery

St Lorenz Lutheran Church Frankenmuth cemeterySt Lorenz Lutheran Church Frankenmuth cemeteryThose are almost all 19th-century stones, near the site of the first two church buildings, and across the street from the current church. A larger cemetery with newer stones is on the same side of the street as the current church.
St Lorenz Lutheran Church Frankenmuth cemeterySt Lorenz Lutheran Church Frankenmuth cemeterySt Lorenz Lutheran Church Frankenmuth cemeteryThe permanent residents are every bit as German as you’d expect: Bauer, Bicker, Fischer, Herzog, Hochthanner, Hubinger, Kern, Roth, Reinert, Weiss, usw. Loehe and Craemer aren’t among them, Find a Grave tells me. Loehe is in Bavaria and Craemer is in St. Louis.

The Lost Lincoln Park Cemetery

Back again on September 3 after the long weekend. But not long enough. They never are.

That southern Lincoln Park used to be a cemetery in Chicago’s earliest days, before the apotheosis of the man from Springfield, wasn’t news to me. I’m pretty sure I read about it during my own early days in Chicago.

The last burial there was in 1866, and soon the graves were moved to “rural” cemeteries like Graceland. Except that bones still turn up from time to time in this part of the park. Wonder if that’s common knowledge among the recreational sports players in the park. Signs posted nearby explain these things, but who reads them?
City Cemetery Chicago-Lincoln Park nowCity Cemetery Chicago-Lincoln Park nowActually, more than signs. Not far from the Chicago History Museum is the sole remaining mausoleum from the cemetery period, the Couch Tomb.

Couch Tomb ChicagoIn “Hidden Truths: The Chicago City Cemetery and Lincoln Park,” artist Pamela Bannos notes the following about the Couch Tomb: “As a part of Hidden Truths, I have asserted that the Couch family tomb is the oldest structure left standing in the Chicago Fire zone. This stone vault has stood in place since it was built on-site in 1858.

“It was this conspicuous vestige from the City Cemetery that initiated this project. During informal polling of friends and acquaintances living in Chicago, I was surprised to learn that many who exited Lake Shore Drive, driving through Lincoln Park, had not noticed the family mausoleum.”

Ira Couch was an early Chicago millionaire who died in 1857. He’s likely in the tomb, along with family members, though that isn’t quite certain. A discussion of that question and much more are included in the Hidden Truths web site.

Most intriguing is why the tomb is still there. Bannos’ best guess, and I will go along with it, is that it was too expensive to move. Plant a few trees around it and before long, no one notices. That’s exactly what has happened.

Calvary Cemetery, Evanston

I’ve taken elevated trains between Chicago and Evanston on and off for years. The CTA Red Line has its north terminus at the Howard Station in Chicago, and from there you ride the Purple Line into Evanston.

For a short stretch just north of Howard, the Purple Line passes Calvary Cemetery, which is also called Calvary Catholic Cemetery on maps. It’s a sizable burial ground, with nearly 40,000 permanent residents, stretching from Chicago Ave. along the elevated tracks nearly to Lake Michigan.

So I’ve seen the cemetery from on high for decades, but never wandered the grounds. I decided to do that on Saturday after visiting the American Toby Jug Museum, since the cemetery is only a few blocks to the south.

The monuments and stones are seemingly spaced more widely than usual for a cemetery of mid-19th century vintage. But among the standing stones are a lot of markers flush with the ground, so it’s hard to appreciate the cemetery’s denseness at first.

Calvary Cemetery Evanston

Calvary Cemetery EvanstonThere are some mausoleums. This one, strangely, had no name on the exterior that I could find.
Calvary Cemetery EvanstonAmbrose Plamondon, founder and head of the Plamondon Manufacturing Co. in Chicago, a maker of machinery who died in 1896 of an “obstinate pulmonary trouble of long standing.”

Calvary Cemetery Evanston

His son Charles is interred there as well. He too was a prominent Chicago businessman, but he and his wife Mary had the misfortune to book passage to the UK on the Lusitania in May 1915.

“The couple celebrated their 36th wedding anniversary, 6 May 1915, while on board Lusitania,” says the Lusitania Resource. “Both Charles and his wife Mary were lost in the sinking. Their remains were washed up on the Irish coast, blackened with coal dust, suggesting that they had been sucked into one of the funnels. Both bodies were recovered and identified.”

Here’s the Cuneo family mausoleum, perched on a modest hill.
Calvary Cemetery EvanstonI’ve happened across the Cuneos before. They acquired an Italianate mansion, now a museum, from ruined businessman Samuel Insull during the Depression. We visited it nearly 10 years ago.

I presume this is patriarch and printing baron Frank Cuneo (1861-1942) in a niche in the front of the structure.
IMCalvary Cemetery Evanston CuneoYou’d think his wife Amelia (1864-1891) would be the other bust adorning the structure, but this face looks a little old for a woman who seems to have died in her 20s giving birth to her fourth child, or at least soon after.

IMCalvary Cemetery Evanston Cuneo

So this is probably Frank Cuneo’s mother, Caterina Lagomercino Cuneo (1828-1900). Maybe she counted as the tough old matriarch and wouldn’t be denied her place of honor.

Most of the Cuneos are interred in the above mausoleum, but not all of them. Frank and Amelia’s eldest son John, who died in 1977, has his own mausoleum not far from his parents and siblings.

There is some funerary art at Calvary.

Calvary Cemetery Evanston CuneoCalvary Cemetery EvanstonCalvary Cemetery EvanstonIncluding stones whose wear speaks of their impermanence.
Calvary Cemetery EvanstonA group memorial to the Religious Sisters of Mercy, who have a long history in Chicago.

Calvary Cemetery Evanston

A number of Chicago mayors are buried here as well, most notably Jane Byrne, who died in 2014. Charlie Comiskey, the baseball boss, is here. Didn’t see either of them, but I wasn’t looking. I was just looking around.

Riverside Cemetery, Montgomery

I had a little time to kill before The Comedy of Errors started in Aurora on Saturday, so I consulted Google Maps and found a nearby cemetery to visit. Riverside Cemetery, which is south of Aurora in the town of Montgomery, Illinois, and which is also on the Fox River.

Not bad. Some trees, many upright stones. Not much in the way of land contour or funerary art, though.

Riverside Cemetery, Montgomery IllinoisRiverside Cemetery, Montgomery Illinois

Riverside Cemetery, Montgomery IllinoisI found what are probably the oldest stones: 19th century.
Riverside Cemetery, Montgomery IllinoisRiverside Cemetery, Montgomery IllinoisAs far as I could see, only one obelisk of any size.
Riverside Cemetery, Montgomery IllinoisMarking the burial site of one V.A. Watkins. Big fish in this little pond.

Later I read that, according to Find A Grave, there’s one noteworthy person buried at Riverside: Bernard Cigrand (1866-1932). I didn’t happen across his stone. He rings no bells. Not even a slight tinkle. He was a dentist, but his stone also says FATHER OF FLAG DAY.

The Danish Cemetery, Lemont

En route back from Joliet on Sunday, there was one more sight to see, just off I-355 in southeast suburban Lemont: The Danish Cemetery. It’s a small patch of land, sparsely populated by the dead — or at least their stones — and it hasn’t seen a burial in more than 50 years.
Danish Cemetery, Lemont

As far as I know, ghost stories aren’t told about this place, especially compared with boneyards that are more remote. The only story I know about the Danish Cemetery involves this memorial off to one edge of the grounds.

Danish Cemetery, Lemont

UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Served the U.S. in time of need
Found dead July 1, 1919
Buried by Legion Post 243

“The body of the unknown soldier was taken out of the Sag Canal at Sag Bridge on July 9 [sic], 1919,” Patch says. “He was found by bargemen working on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal… the funeral home believed the body had been in the water for about 10 days. The remains were brought to Lemont, and they tried to identify the body. Besides the uniform, there were no identifying papers on the body.

“The Lemont Historical Society said no one came forward in Lemont to identify the body and the Lemont American Legion buried him with full honors in the Danish Cemetery.”

Southern Loop Debris

When were driving through LaGrange, Texas, on the first day of the trip, I began to wonder. What’s this town known for? I know it’s something. Then I saw a sign calling LaGrange “the best little town in Texas.” Oh, yeah. Famed in song and story.

On the way to Buffalo Bayou Park in Houston, we took a quick detour — because I’d seen it on a map — to see the Beer Can House at 222 Malone St., a quick view from the car. Looks like this. Had we wanted to spend a little more time in Houston, I definitely would have visited the Orange Show. Ah, well.

We enjoyed our walk along Esplanade St. in New Orleans, where you can see some fine houses.
Plus efforts to thwart porch pirates. We saw more than one sign along these lines during our walk down the street.
We spent part of an evening in New Orleans on Frenchman St., which is described as not as rowdy or vomit-prone as Bourbon St., and I suppose that’s true, though it is a lively place. We went for the music.

At Three Muses, we saw Washboard Rodeo. They were fun. Western swing in New Orleans. Played some Bob Wills, they did.

At d.b.a, we saw Brother Tyrone and the Mindbenders. Counts as rock and soul, I’d say. Also good fun, though they were playing for a pretty thin Monday night crowd.

Adjacent to Frenchman St. is an evening outdoor market, the Frenchman Art Market, which we visited between the two performances. The market featured an impressive array of local art for sale, though nothing we couldn’t live without.

Something you see on U.S. 61 just outside of Natchez, Mississippi: Mammy’s Cupboard, a restaurant. More about it here.

In Philadelphia, Mississippi, Stribling St. is still around. I don’t know why it wouldn’t be, but after nearly 30 years, I wanted another look.

So is the local pharmacy run by distant cousins. Glad the chains haven’t spelled its demise.

During our drive from metro Jackson, Mississippi, to Montgomery, Alabama — connected by U.S. 80 and not an Interstate, as you might think — we passed through Selma, Alabama. I made a point of driving across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, though we decided not to get out and look around. Remarkably, the bridge looks exactly as it does in pictures more than 50 years old.

In downtown Montgomery, you can see this statue. I understand the bronze has been around since 1991, but was only recently moved to its current site not far from Riverfront Park, the river of course being the Alabama.
I’d forgotten native son Hank Williams died so young. Some singers die rock ‘n’ roll deaths, some die country deaths like Hank.

Speaking of death, early in the trip, I was activating my phone — whose dim algorithm always suggests news I seldom want to see during the process — and I noticed the name “Doris Day” in the feed. I figured that could mean only one thing. Sure enough, she became the first celebrity death of the trip.

I hadn’t known she was still alive. In fairly rapid order during the trip after Ms. Day, the reaper came for Tim Conway, I.M. Pei and Grumpy Cat. I didn’t know that last one, but Lilly did.

I remember a time that Tim Conway described himself as “the funniest man in the universe” on the Carol Burnett Show. We all took that as a comedian’s hyperbole. But what if he was right? What if some higher intelligence has made a four-dimensional assessment of human humor and come to that exact conclusion?

As for Doris Day, I will try to park as close to my destinations as possible in her honor for the foreseeable future (a term I remember hearing as long ago as the ’80s in Austin).

Also in Montgomery: the Alabama State Capitol. The Alabama legislature had been in the news a lot before we came to town, as the latest state body to try to topple Roe v. Wade. That isn’t why I visited. I see capitols when I can.

From a distance.
Closer.
The capitol was completed in 1851, though additions have been made since then. The interior of the dome is splendid.

Actually, the Alabama House and Senate don’t meet in the capitol any more, but at the nearby Alabama State House, something I found out later. When we visited, the capitol’s House and Senate chambers seemed like museum pieces rather than space for state business, and that’s why.

Seems like hipsters haven’t discovered Decatur, Alabama, yet. But as real estate prices balloon in other places, it isn’t out of the question. The town has a pleasant riverfront on the Tennessee and at least one street, Bank St., that could be home to overpriced boutiques and authentic-experience taprooms.
Of more interest to me was the Old State Bank, dating back to 1833 and restored toward the end of the 20th century. It is where Bank St. ends, or begins, near the banks of the Tennessee River.

Even more interesting is the Lafayette Street Cemetery, active from ca. 1818.

Lafayette Street Cemetery Decatur AlabamaIt’s more of a ruin than a cemetery, but I’m glad it has survived.
Lafayette Street Cemetery Decatur AlabamaLafayette Street Cemetery Decatur AlabamaLafayette Street Cemetery Decatur AlabamaDuring the entirety of the trip, there were plenty of random bits of the South to be seen along the way.
We also listened to a lot of Southern radio on the trip — something Lilly plans to avoid on future trips, Southern or not, with her Bluetooth and so on — and we had a little game whenever we tuned into someone discussing some social problem in earnest on a non-music, non-NPR station. The game: guess how long will it be before the discussion turns to God. It was never very long.

Ave Maria Grotto

From what I’ve read about Brother Joseph Zoettl, O.S.B. (1878-1961), he wouldn’t have cared whether he was depicted in bronze or not. Be that as it may, many years after his death, Br. Joseph stands facing his creation, the Ave Maria Grotto, on the grounds of St. Bernard Abbey near Cullman, Alabama.

Driving north from Montgomery toward Decatur on the afternoon of May 17, we weren’t about to miss the grotto. It features 150 or so miniature replicas of famous buildings, almost all created by Br. Joseph over three decades, out of found materials.

“Originally from Landschutt, Bavaria-Germany, a young Br. Joseph found himself headed to America to pursue monastic life at Alabama’s only Benedictine Abbey,” the abbey web site says.

“Little did anyone know that this young Bavarian would end up leaving the abbey its greatest legacy and in an incredibly humble way. Since 1934, people from around the world visit the Ave Maria Grotto to see famous parts of the world in miniature. The former abbey quarry is now the four-acre park that the Grotto and surrounding miniatures rest upon.”

Many of the structures are perched on the side of a slope, with a path winding down below for a look at them.

As you’d expect, most of the structures replicate Christian churches or shrines or scenes, such as the First Christmas.
A wayside shrine, modeled after those popular in Latin America.
Lourdes Basilica and Grotto.
St. Martin’s in Landshut, Bavaria. This was one of the few structures that Br. Joseph had actually seen. The rest he did working off photos — postcards especially.
Sometimes, Br. Joseph decided to build something a little less religious. Such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Or “Hansel and Gretel Visit the Castle of the Fairies.” I don’t remember that part of the story. Maybe it was part of the sequel: Hansel and Gretel vs. the Fairies of Doom.
Roadside America: “The Grotto is not some holy shrine that got out of control. From the start, it was conceived as an over-the-top public attraction.

“Using only basic hand tools, Brother Joseph would shape cement into a replica building, then give it some zing with marbles, seashells, cracked dinner plates, or bicycle reflectors. Tiny-but-majestic domes were fashioned from old birdcages and toilet tank floats.”

The abbey includes a good deal more than the grotto.
There’s a church and school, and a few minute’s walk from the grotto, a cemetery for the monks. Br. Joe’s cross is in there somewhere.

Garden District Walkabout, Including Lafayette Cemetery No. 1

Someone once warned me about the condition of the sidewalks in the French Quarter, but on the whole, they weren’t that bad. For crumbling, occasionally hazardous sidewalks, the Quarter or even Treme couldn’t compare with the Garden District. Some stretches reminded me of Mexico City in that regard.

The houses in the Garden District clearly represent a concentration of wealth, so you’d think the sidewalks would be repaired. Maybe it’s that New Orleans is a trifle lax when it comes to infrastructure, but I don’t actually know that — the idea merely fits with the city’s reputation.

Or it could be a weird municipal dynamic: the city can’t appear to put too much money into the roads and sidewalks of an affluent area like the Garden District. Bad optics. So the area’s infrastructure is a little rough. Maybe the residents don’t care much. The only people on foot in the district seemed to be tourists, singly or in tour groups.

Never mind, it’s a good place for a walk, if you pay attention, and even when the Southern sun begins to beat down, as it did late on the morning of May 14. Sometimes shade is there for the taking.

The trees part to reveal some fine houses.

My favorite among those I saw, though of course that was a small fraction of the area’s visual richness.
Our walk took us past some houses marked as historic, such as the Goldsmith-Godchaux House.
Alas, it seems to be noted more for its invisible (to us) interior than the exterior, though that’s nice enough. The plaque outside says: “Designed by noted nineteenth century architect Henry Howard in 1859. Significant for its painted interiors. Has more fresco wall decoration and stenciling than probably any other mid-nineteenth century residence in the South.”

It occurred to me, walking along and sweating, that the Garden District represents 19th-century urban sprawl. New development is often spoken of as if it’s kudzu, which grows willy-nilly and takes over the place. This is nonsense, since residential development follows demand, though infrastructure spending helps facilitate it (in the 20th century, that means you, Robert Moses).

In any case, the demand was there after New Orleans became part of the United States, since the new English-speaking population didn’t particularly want to live with the Creoles in the Vieux Carré. They probably considered the old city an old dump.

Who started subdividing the plantations that used to be the Garden District? I had to find out. A singularly interesting character named Barthélémy Lafon, a Frenchman who seems to have skipped out on the Revolution, coming to New Orleans in 1789.

According to 64 Parishes, “Barthélémy Lafon enjoyed a long and diverse career in Louisiana as an architect, builder, engineer, surveyor, cartographer, town planner, land speculator, publisher, and pirate.”

My italics. Though it seems like he was more of a rich-man sponsor of pirates than someone who went to sea in search of booty. Even pirates need seed capital.

Down on Magazine St., we walked by some interesting commercial structures, such this one at the corner of Magazine and Jackson.

As it says, the building is home to Koch & Wilson Architects, who (I found out) are restoration specialists. Good for them. A fine thing to be in New Orleans. Among other things, the firm restored the nearby St. Mary’s Assumption. Sadly, we couldn’t get in to see that.

On the first floor of the Koch and Wilson Architects building is a flag shop, a deli and a doughnut shop (and H&R Block, but never mind). How cool a tenant roster is that?
We stopped by for doughnuts, and coldbrew coffee for Lilly. The shop served large and pricey hipster doughnuts, something not especially distinctive to New Orleans, but who cares. They were good.

Walking down Magazine, you come across this curiosity.
I’d look that up, but I’d rather not know exactly what you’d see there. We all need a little mystery, even in the age of Google.

Down the other direction on Magazine is a joint after my own heart, but we didn’t stop in.
I couldn’t visit the Garden District without dropping in on Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. It was a more popular place than most cemeteries I’ve been to.

The collection of tombs is similar to that of Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, a mix of maintained and crumbling examples.
The cemetery had better shade than Saint Louis, mostly in the form of sheltering magnolias, and wider avenues of the dead in some places.
Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 also has some collective tombs. This one says Jefferson Fire Company, 1852.
Here’s one for orphans.
Society for the Relief of Destitute Orphan Boys, 1894. If that isn’t Victorian nomenclature, I don’t know what is.

Nicolas Cage, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans & the Young Cemetery Enthusiast

Back again on Tuesday, after Memorial Day.

These days, you need to be part of an organized tour to legally visit Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans, though considering that city’s reputation, I expect people still slip in. But I wanted to do things the official way, so on the morning of May 13, Lilly and I were part of a Free Tours on Foot tour of the historic cemetery. That’s a pay-what-you-will organization whose tours I first enjoyed in Charleston, SC.

Actually, not free in this case, even if you’re a wanker who doesn’t tip the guide at the end of the tour, since the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, owner of the cemetery, demands a $2 fee per person paid upfront. Not that onerous, and I hope that it all goes to maintenance of the place. (Also, I tipped our guide, since I’m not going to be that wanker.)

New Orleans cemeteries famously sport above-ground tombs, a feature I long believed stemmed from the region’s high water table. That seems to be a common notion, repeated in guidebooks in an earlier time, and on many web sites more recently.

Our guide, an earnest young man and New Orleans history buff, told us otherwise.
What he said was pretty much in line with how an interesting web site called Interesting Thing of the Day explains it: “Tour guides seldom mention that above-ground burial was a common practice in both France and Spain, where many of the early settlers were from. Even without the resurfacing coffins — which, by the way, were the exception rather than the rule — this practice may well have been adopted simply to keep with tradition. In any case, this method is still widely used today, even though the water table has dropped considerably over the past two centuries as nearby marshes and swamps were drained.

“In New Orleans… bodies are usually placed inside the walls of the tombs. Because of the hot, subtropical climate, the tomb then effectively becomes an oven, and the high heat causes the body to decompose rapidly in a process that has been compared to a slow cremation. Within about a year, only bones are left.

“Just as an oven would not be constructed to bake a single loaf of bread, the tombs in New Orleans cemeteries are used again and again. The specifics vary depending on the exact design of the tomb, but a typical scenario is that after a year, the bones of the departed are swept into an opening in the floor of the tomb, which is then ready for its next occupant. It is a common practice to bury all the members of a family — or multiple families — in the same tomb, with names and dates added to a plaque or headstone as necessary.”

Overall, Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 has the look and feel of a dense necropolis, with avenues of the dead running between the tombs.
Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 Some of the tombs — a good many — are well maintained. Others, not so much.

We saw a number of examples of tombs used by many occupants over the years, including those of mutual aid societies established in New Orleans in the 19th century. The most ornate of these is the New Orleans Italian Mutual Benevolent Society’s tomb.

Architect Pietro Gualdi designed the tomb in the mid-1850s and went as far as inscribing his name on it. The tomb’s 24 vaults were for the temporary use of the society’s members, with its basement serving as an ossuary. The guide said that Gualdi died of one of the diseases that killed a lot of people in 19th-century New Orleans, maybe malaria, and was one of the first people interred in his creation (Wiki asserts malaria for sure).

Another collective tomb: the Orleans Battalion of Artillery.

Its plaque says:

Within this burial memorial rest some of the gallant defenders of New Orleans, members of the battalion which fought in honor on the plains of Chalmette on January 8, 1815 against the British invaders.

Date of construction is unknown.

Restored in 1974

Naturally the tour went by one of the cemetery’s odder tombs — that commissioned by actor Nicolas Cage, presumably to bake his mortal remains when the time comes.
Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 Nicholas CageI’ve read he’s gotten a lot of flack for it. The tomb does look a little out of place, but then again, pyramids aren’t unknown in cemeteries — and why do all the tombs need to be rectangular? Also, the archdiocese clearly signed off on the thing, presumably persuaded by the actor’s payment of a generous fee.

In a century, tours will probably pass by the pyramid, by that time stained and a little crumbled, and explain that an eccentric movie actor had it built for himself in the early 21st century. Maybe the guide will have to explain what a movie was. And say that the actor supposedly believed in the power of voodoo to revive him, and in fact practiced voodoo himself.

I made that last part up as an example of a story someone might tell in the future. After all, such stories occasionally cling to someone long after their death. Take the example of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen, whose tomb the tour visited last (she’s there with a number of other people, per cemetery custom).
Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 Marie LaveauMarie LaRoadside America: “Marie Laveau ran a New Orleans hairdressing salon during the day, but on her off-hours she was (supposedly) the Voodoo Queen, sought after for her potions and charms that would bring love or money to those willing to pay the price.

“Laveau died in 1881, but a tradition later developed that she could still grant favors from beyond the grave if believers either left offerings or scrawled three Xs on her tomb. This resulted in what was clearly the messiest grave in the U.S., and caused no end of headaches for local preservationists, who had to constantly clean and repair the tomb only to have it trashed again.

“They finally had enough and, on March 1, 2015, the cemetery was declared off-limits to all tourists except tour groups led by licensed tour guides.”

Marie Laveau’s grave is clean white these days, though if you look closely enough, you can see traces of those Xs drawn on the stone. As for Mme. Laveau’s skills in the voodoo arts, the guide suggested we take those stories with grains of salt. I will. New Orleans seems to have more than her share of such stories, yet we love her for it.

Usually members of a tour like this don’t have that many questions, but one young woman — college age, I think, on the tour with her mother — peppered the guide with an unusual number of questions that betrayed a strong interest in cemeteries and funerary practices.

The tour wound down at the Basin St. Station, a redevelopment between the cemetery and Louis Armstrong Park that has a New Orleans visitors center, exhibits and event space. A few of us stayed there to speak with the guide a little longer, and he and I and the young cemetery enthusiast started comparing notes about cemeteries worth visiting. I suggested Green-Wood in Brooklyn and Woodland in Dayton, though of course I can never remember its name. One suggestion of his — or hers — was Akaroa Cemetery in New Zealand, which I have to say does look pretty cool.