Archive for the ‘Burial customs and info’ Category

Several people have messaged me about the first post in this series, and said they couldn’t believe that I’d be mean enough to withhold specifics. One even went so far as to call me a tease…lol.

So here are some actual examples of problems that have arisen- I’ve condensed them, obviously, and tried to make it lighthearted but every one of these situations is real, only mildly hyperbolized and represents a larger subset of problems.

I’ve put most of it behind a jump because, honestly, if you’re not doing research for something/someone in particular it likely won’t be terribly interesting to you.

---

Requestor: My great-great grandmother died in 1892 and was buried in New Orleans. Can you take a photo of her grave for me?

Me: Happy to help- where’s she buried?

R: I told you- she died in New Orleans.

M: Understood. But there are 42 graveyards in New Orleans, so we need to be more specific.

R: We’re Episcopalian.

M: Unfortunately there aren’t any dedicated Episcopalian cemeteries in the city, so it might take a little digging, but I have a list of great online resources on the website, so why not start doing some research there?

R: Why can’t you do it? You volunteered to help me and I’m very busy.

M: I volunteered to go out and take photos of gravesites, but you have to be able tell me where they are.

R: I’m going to alert RAOGK you’re not doing what you said you would.

M: I’m sorry? You’re going to…tell on me?

R: Yes!

M: Uh… okay, you do what you need to.

This has actually happened several times- both the “can you do the work” and the “I’m telling.”

You are actually the best equipped person to research your family’s history because you have more detail and access to more family links, last names, etc. I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction where I can, and although I understand it can be frustrating, I’m simply not in a position to do all the legwork.

---

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 discussed some of the specifics that hold true across the various types of burials in New Orleans, and in Part 2 we’ll address some of the different types of grave structures, which will hopefully illustrate their (rather frustrating) impact on genealogists.

• Family Tombs (including all standard above ground types)- Typically with 2-4 vaults inside, these can be found in everything from simple brick to elaborate Italian marble in a variety of shapes. Most families opt to have each name etched into the stone, although some only have the original familial name carved.
  

  An intact 2 vault family tomb with the parts labeled

  An aged 2 vault family tomb with the specifics missing

• Copings- these plots are partially in the ground and partially above it. Lined in concrete and filled with earth, they can be sealed with another layer of concrete, loose stone or grass. Typically these have a step between the ground and the top, upon which the family name is etched. While a headstone is often added with family specifics, many copings bear only the family name, leaving no way to know at a glance who was buried within. Simpler and much less expensive to build and maintain, these became (and remain) an attractive option for the middle class.
  
  

  A group of coping-style tombs- most without headstones showing specifics about the family and interred. (Click to see detail)

• Society-These are clubs and fraternal organizations where your membership entitles you to place to be buried. There are many of these covering all aspects of society- churches, orphanages, immigrant groups, benevolent associations, professional groups and more. Primarily they were groups that did larger works in the community, but a few were simply ‘death clubs,’ where burial in their tomb was their only real purpose. Society tombs rarely list their individual members at all. Society tombs can be found in every cemetery but there are two cemeteries specifically dedicated to such organizations (Odd Fellows Rest and Masonic). Both of course have many society tombs, but they allowed their members to buy plots and erect individual tombs as well.
  

  Orleans Battalion of Artillery Tomb- one of the most famous, and completely intact, but without a single name upon it.

  A coping-style Society burial

• Oven/Wall- These are the ‘rentals’ of the graveyard, and where most people didn’t want to end up, especially if they didn’t have any family in the city to keep the rent paid up. There are several ways people would end up in these:
  • The law stated that a person must be buried for a year + 1 day before they could be disinterred and another person placed in any vault. If a family or group was unlucky enough to have too many deaths in too short a time, a wall vault could be rented for the interim, until they could be placed with their family.
  • Those with little money could rent a space for their family member. The rent covered the required year and a day, but after that you could be evicted if your family didn’t continue to keep up the payments. Depending on who you left behind, you might or might not get a stone at all- after all, if it was only a temporary crash pad, why would you go to the expense? However, if your family decided they wanted to keep the vault indefinitely and even make it their family burial plot, a stone could be placed. If, however, at some point the rent went unpaid, you could still find yourself turned out.
  
  

  About half have stones, and not all of those have inscriptions. There's no way to tell how many times they were used.

  Two rows of oven tombs intersect. They've sunken into the ground and few have gravestones.

  The walls of most of the cemeteries around town are lined with these simple stacked tombs- hundreds of them per cemetery. (although both are typically part of the cemetery walls, a “Wall” tomb is squared off, while an “oven” is curved at the top, like a brick oven- which is essentially what they were.)

  These could be seen as the predecessors of today’s mausoleums, though in New Orleans we now have both- single burial mausoleums and family wall tombs. The old ‘rental’ style is no more, however, and most of the old wall vaults are sealed shut.

• Earthen burial- There are two very different kinds of these:
  • Jewish burials- Although you’ll occasionally see a tomb with a Star of David in other cemeteries, most Jews have opted to be buried in the Jewish cemeteries around town. These look more like the typical American graveyard- tombstones on the ground (or in low copings), often with a single burial. Each of these cemeteries are clean, clipped and orderly.
    
    

    Neat rows of headstones in Chevra Thilim

  • Indigent burials- These have simple underground interments- something that wouldn’t be a problem in most of the country. Burials here are very cheap and usually have only family-made markers- but you’re paying for the service and not the land. You own nothing, and unless their loved ones keep the plot maintained and clearly demarcated they are also impermanent, lasting sometimes less than a year. Every time I visit these there are major changes and you never know what you’ll find, though the sextons do not disturb a grave if it is being cared for, and some plots have been reused many times in the same way that a family tomb gets reused.
    
    

    The less orderly Holt Cemetery

  There are exceptions to these, of course- these are just the most common types and situations to be found. In the last in the series we’ll look at some of the specific requests for help that have come in and what the issues involved can be.

  • 

A Little History
New Orleans was founded in 1718 based on a misunderstanding. French explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville saw Native Americans trading on the far side of the Mississippi River and thought it would be an excellent spot for a colony, figuring that if it was good enough for the natives, it was good enough for France.

What he didn’t realize was that those natives thought the area was cursed- area tribes gathered at the crescent in the riverbend to trade and negotiate during the day but made sure to leave before nightfall. Bienville and his brother Iberville would spend the rest of their lives trying to get the colony up and running, battling famine, disease, poverty, a reluctant citizenry (largely prisoners given the choice of prison or relocation), and not surprisingly the Native Americans, who were less than thrilled about their new neighbors.

One thing they hadn’t counted on was the high water table, which caused all kinds of problems. They only had to dig down a foot before the soil had turned to mud- which made for fertile planting but easy flooding. All of the colony’s problems led to a high death toll, and the problems with underground burial soon presented themselves.

They tried weighting coffins, drilling holes in them, buring them standing on end- nothing kept them in the ground, and as soon as the first good storm came along things got gruesome. The city’s first cemetery was enclosed by a low brick wall to keep these unfortunate accidents contained, and by the time St. Louis No. 1 was founded in 1789 the European style above ground tombs had been adopted. Even then there were issues with sinkage and subsidence; many tombs fell down quickly under their own weight. Some simply sunk down into the muck.

Burial Basics
Most family tombs can hold 2 coffins at a time, but those slots will be reused many many times. For example, St. Louis No 1 is one of the smallest cemeteries in the city but has still had over 100,000 burials.

Example: Let’s say Grandma and Grampa Boudreaux have a tomb built. Their name will be etched into the stone and will be forever be referenced as “the Boudreaux tomb”, even if/when other family members with different last names are buried there. After a full and happy life, the grandparents are each buried in the tomb. A few years later, their married daughter Sally Thibodaux dies, the sexton removes Grandpa and  places his remains in a pouch which gets dropped into a receptacle at the bottom of the tomb. Grandma will stay where she is until the next time the tomb is needed and then the process repeats.

Even when cremation started becoming a mainstream option in the 1870s it wasn’t viable in New Orleans because the Catholic Church forbade the practice. The city had always been almost entirely Catholic- in fact the cemeteries were not segregated by color or class- only by religion. In the main area of St. Louis No. 1 you’ll find tombs of whites, freed blacks, slaves, immigrants, governors and mayors- all connected by their religion. The few Protestants in the city were buried in a tiny walled off area at the back of the graveyard.

Why this can make finding your family tomb difficult

I am ALWAYS happy to try to help, but do want to make sure you know some of the issues at play:

• In our example Sally had taken her husband’s last name, but the name on the tomb still reads Boudreaux, and even as more generations come along and more last names are added, the tomb is still the Boudreaux tomb, even if that name has died out in your family tree. It would take:
  • Reading every name etched on every tomb to find someone- an impossible task
  • The genealogist making the request to know who their first relative in New Orleans was

  or best of all

  • Having a plot number or location

• Plagues of Yellow Fever and hurricane flooding have both wreaked havoc on older records
  • During the waves of plague records were barely kept. Hundreds of people died every day for weeks on end and it was nearly impossible for the cemeteries to keep up. After the outbreak had passed the families would have the names engraved on the tombs where possible, but that still left many unaccounted for as late as the 1890s
  • Hurricane Betsy in 1965 caused the loss of additional records, before computerization. Katrina didn’t help matters, and systemization has been slow.
• Sheer size- there are 42 cemeteries in New Orleans, ranging from 1 square city block to over 450,000 square feet.
• Tomb style- several different styles of tombs in New Orleans will only bear the family name (or that of an organization) and not individual first and last names.

These are things that apply to all burials in New Orleans. Part 2 will start to take up some specific tomb types and how they change the dynamic.

I recently nearly quit volunteering for Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. RAOGK is a wonderful organization, helping people around the world research their family histories, and I have nothing but appreciation for the hundreds of volunteers who give their time and energy. Through their referrals I’ve been able to help quite a few people and it’s a wonderful feeling when everything slots into place.

Unfortunately, there are times the stars don’t align and I haven’t been able to locate the requestor’s information. There have been times where I spent hours and hours searching for the answer to someone’s question only to come up blank. There have been times I’ve tipped cemetery workers for their help and still left empty handed. I understand people being upset, but when that disappointment becomes abuse I have to draw the line and had just about reached a point where it seemed volunteering wasn’t worth it.

Then I received a request from someone who’d had to leave the area after Katrina. Her family had suffered terrible losses in the storm, and as much as she would love to come back, it’s just not an option right now. It turned out that she’d volunteered for RAOGK and told me that there were no other volunteers in my area. Being from here, she understood the specific issues surrounding New Orleans burial customs and searching out graves and we chatted about what a solution might be.

With her gracious encouragement, I’ve decided to stay on, and am going to write up a sort of NOLA Cemeteries 101 to help visitors as well as people doing research into their family histories.

On to Part 1…

Everything in New Orleans is Saints-centric right now- and after 44 years you can hardly blame us!

New Orleanians as a rule are closer to their dearly departed than many, and now is no exception. The newspaper has a memorial section for Saints fans who passed away before seeing their team make it to the big game, and as of tonight there are over 300 entries.

We had a huge parade last Sunday to remember our long-term sports guy, Buddy D. Buddy famously said that he’d go dancing in the streets in a dress if we ever made it to the Superbowl. Buddy died in 2005, but thousands of men went in his place. (Video here, story here)

But in just walking around, there are all kinds of mini memorials all over town.

This one is in Masonic:

This anonymous tomb in St. Louis No 2 made me wonder-somebody clearly still cares for it:

And then of course, there’s Ashley Morris. He was a larger than life local blogger, filled with righteous, hilarious, completely un-PC anger. He died unexpectedly in 2008 and left a huge hole in the city. I happened to pass by his tomb and found that his friends had come by and left a little Saints shrine for him:

They left our local version of The Onion, called The Levee(motto: “We don’t hold anything back”), beads and a copy of the Roofbanger’s Creed, which reads:

We believe in the New Orleans Saints, #1 seed, and in Drew Breesus, our only begotten quarterback, who was drafted by the Chargers, but born again in the Who Dat Nation

We have suffered under Ditka, Haslett and 40 years of Schwegmann’s grocery bags. We had descended into hell.

On September 25, 2006, Miracle Monday, we rose again from the dead. We have ascended into the Sacredome, heaven on earth, seated at the right hand of Sean Payton, the Coach Almighty.

From here, we shall smell greatness, finish strong, be special. We believe in the Ghost of Buddy D. WE believe in the Who Dat Nation, the communion of Saints, the power of the fans, the resurrection of New Orleans, and a Black and Gold SuperBowl. WHO DAT!

One thing is for certain- win or lose, tomorrow is going to be a party for the ages, and all of these people and many more will be here in the hearts of those left behind, sharing in this wonderous thing they’d so long cheered for.

What on earth do the Saints and their Superdome have to do with graveyards? You might be surprised.

The Saints were founded on All Saints Day (also known as the Day of the Dead)- November 1, 1966. Maybe not the best sign and portent ever, compounded by the fact that it only came to pass after much old fashioned shady Louisiana politics.

That year the AFL (American Football League) and NFL (National Football League) were quietly holding merger talks, but it was leaked to the public and Congress brought an antitrust suit to block the action. After who knows what kind of backroom deals and promises, Louisiana reps brought the proceedings to a grinding halt, stopping the antitrust case in its tracks. Local reps managed to push through not only approval of the merger but an agreement to not bring any further action against the league.

A hasty conference call was held amoungst all those newly happy franchise owners, and voila! The next day New Orleans suddenly had themselves a football team, despite not having an actual team, owners, a stadium, or any of those other pesky little details.

One of the first orders of the day was to figure out where to put a stadium. The city chose land previously seized and cleared for a Civic Center several years before, though the Center ended up not using all the land they’d taken and proved to be a good starting point for the Dome.

Part of that property had been Girod St. Cemetery, a primarily Protestant burial ground founded in 1822. Horribly deteriorated and overgrown, it was deconsecrated and the bodies relocated by their descendants where possible and by the city where not.

Although, quite frankly, no one claims that every body interred was moved, and the graveyard already had an unhappy reputation. It was rumored to be a place the Voodoo practitioners went to obtain parts for their rituals. Regardless of the reason, many graves had been broken into over the years, robbed for one reason or another, and bones were strewn everywhere. The odds that they were all treated with care and respect when the bulldozers arrived are fairly long.

(there aren’t many photos of Girod St. left, OldNewOrleans has several excellent ones.)
 
 

And speaking of long odds, we get back to the Saints and their curse. In their four decades as a team, they’ve never made it to the Superbowl and have only made it to the playoffs 6 times- winning only 2 of those. Jokingly (well, mostly) the angry dead are blamed for their record.  Priests, Voodoos and everybody else have blessed the area multiple times & there are fans who bring gris-gris bags (voodoo goodluck charms) and pray for the kindness and goodwill of the Girod St. dead before the games, proving that once again the dead are a part of everyday life here.

Today, as we get ready for the Saints 7th playoff game you can bet there’ll be a lot of people praying to whoever/whatever will listen. Regardless of how the playoffs go, this has been the best season in our history, so maybe, just maybe, all those prayers have finally paid off.

So… all that being said….

WHO DAT!

I recently went into St. Louis No. 1 and discovered that he moron tour guides have picked a new tomb to destroy:

Less reputable guides will tell their groups that a particular tomb has some powerful Voodoo practitioner buried inside and even beyond the grave is still to be feared. Ironically, they then tell you that the best way to pay your respect is to desecrate their tombs and give them a little errand to run on your behalf. I’m sorry, I don’t know if this makes me want to laugh or cry. I don’t care what your religious beliefs are, I don’t care how young or gullible or hung over you are. Tell me if this makes any sense to you:

“Okay, we’re going to break off a piece of someone else’s tomb and use it to scratch 3 X’s into this pooooooowerful dead lady’s grave. And she’ll be thrilled about that, by the way. So go ahead and scrape off some more of her plaster, no problem, then knock three times on the brick and then make a wish so the nice (but scary!) dead lady can get right to work on that!”

If it was just a silly superstition, I wouldn’t care, but these graves are already falling apart faster than they can be put back together. And yes, each person takes just a small chip of brick- but dozens of times a day, 6 days a week?

Here is the side of that same tomb, and you can see how a layer of brick has already come loose and how the plaster is already coming off. This particular grave is well off the beaten path; I think the caretakers have been trying to discourage this practice, so I’m guessing whatever guide is doing this is trying to hide his activities:

Traditionally, it’s been Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau’s tomb they’ve chosen:

There, you can see the x’s better because the plaster is being maintained, otherwise it would have long been worn away. While there’s a controversy over whether the Queen is really in that grave at all, the tomb in that first set of photos doesn’t even have a name on it and the guide likely doesn’t even know who’s inside.

I have gotten into fights in St. Louis No. 1, telling people to knock it off and why. The amazing thing is how many of them are wide eyed that grave desecration would be any kind of a problem. One even dreamily told me that “it’s just like wishing on a star!”

Wow. It’s enough to make you hope that Marie Laveau is in there, listening. It would have made that girl’s dreams veeeeerrry interesting that night, I’m sure.

See Part 1 here.

Once the dearly departed has been interred, everything changes.

No more dirges or sad songs, it’s time to celebrate a life well lived. Parasols come out, white handkerchiefs fly and the dancing begins.

Only 33, Kerwin had a stroke after Hurricane Katrina, succumbing in 2007. His bio, according to a writeup in the Times-Pic:

Kerwin James is truly a product of New Orleans. He grew up in the Sixth Ward playing the snare drum at the age of eight and began picking up the tuba a few years later. The young James would accompany his brother Philip Frazier of the Rebirth Brass Band to the band’s gigs and act as Grand Marshall, dancing and occasionally sitting in with the band. By the time Kerwin was eleven years old, he had made enough tips playing in the French Quarter to buy his first horn. Since then, James has played with the Jr. Olympia Brass Band, the Allstars and the Rebirth Brass Band.

Unfortunately, James’ funeral became a flashpoint in the community.

Again from the Times-Picayune:

Monday, at about 8 p.m., nearly 20 police cars swarmed to a Treme corner, breaking up a memorial procession and taking away two well-known neighborhood musicians in handcuffs.

The confrontation spurred cries in the neighborhood about the over-reaction and disproportionate enforcement by police, who had often turned a blind eye to the traditional memorial ceremonies. Still others say the incident is a sign of a greater attack on the cultural history of the old city neighborhood by well-heeled newcomers attracted to Treme by the very history they seem to threaten.

Police say Monday’s response was in part generated from unspecified complaints.

Tabb and Andrews face misdemeanor charges of disturbing the peace and parading without a permit. But both returned Tuesday night to the intersection of St. Philip and North Robertson streets to lead another procession for their friend.

“I got to be here,” Andrews said. “Because I have to stand up for what I believe in.”

The other concern, which is not mentioned in the article, is that the parades have occasionally been used as a place to settle ‘scores,’ particularly if the deceased died violently. The purchasing of permits for the parades is the police’s preferred method of dealing with the situation. The permits would pay for police escorts, which would keep private property from being touched, and keep the possibility of danger down.

The second line groups argue that this is part of the tradition in the city, and requiring these permits would kill the tradition, since many of these musicians’ families are poor and couldn’t afford the expense.

It’s an argument that’s not yet settled, so we’ll have to keep an eye on it and hope the tradition lives on.

One of the amazing traditions in New Orleans- particularly among musicians, Indians and Krewe people- is the Jazz Funeral, or, as it used to be known “Funeral with music,” typically followed by a Second Line parade.

In New Orleans, death has a different feeling than in the rest of the United States; there’s a familiarity and comfort with it, because it’s been so much closer here than elsewhere. With Yellow Fever, bubonic plague, hurricanes, duels, accidents on the Mississippi River and so many other ways to die prematurely, the people here learned to enjoy every moment while they could, and give a fantastic sendoff to their friends- after all, you never know when it’s going to be your turn, and you’d want them to do the same for you, right?

And so, the tradition of a two-part sendoff evolved over time, its roots having come over from Africa with the slaves. The musical styles have changed over the years, with brass bands being the current favorite. A band can be hired, but often family and friends bring their own instruments to play in honor of the deceased as well.

The “Jazz” part of the funeral begins after the service, when the casket is removed from the church.

Dirges and hymns are sung as the coffin is brought (either by foot or by hearse, depending on distance) to the cemetery. The marchers move slowly, swaying and singing, following behind in mourning, until they arrive at the grave side, where everything changes.

Youtube link:

Pt 2 here.

…why New Orleans’ burials are typically above ground, this should clear it up.

I took this photo in McDonoghville Cemetery in Algiers- still in New Orleans, but on the far side of the Mississippi. They have a mix of semi-in ground burials and traditional tombs, but this was one of the former that had been dug but not yet lined.

You only have to go down 12-18 inches before you hit water- New Orleans is basically a skim of soil atop a lake. Even the graves that seem to be closer to the more usual American-style aren’t all they appear.

This hole will be lined in cement block and sealed, but how well that sealant works is questionable at best- here’s another nearby grave that’s further along in the process, and still had several inches of water inside:

I should point out that it’s been a particularly dry season here- it hadn’t rained in over a week before this was taken.

Ultimately, the site will look much like this:

It will be capped off with a material of the family’s choosing- typically cement, or heavy boards weighted down/covered over with gravel- and in the end the bodies will really be partially above ground after all.