Archive for the ‘Holt’ Category

Well, I suppose the trouble isn’t so much with the cemeteries as with the city.

A pattern has emerged that shows a city employee, Alma Gardner, has been stealing from grieving families. It was Mrs. Gardner’s job to collect the $100 city fee and provide a list of gravediggers to the family.

Frankly, even that sounds rather ghoulish. As in most cities, private- and Church-run cemeteries have diggers on staff, and the family need not worry about that detail- the grave or tomb has been prepared before they arrive, and matters are handled discreetly.

Gardner, however, just told them the fee was $350 over and above the city’s fees and had her grandson do the work. Well, if he could be bothered to show up, anyway:

Seeing that the gravedigger didn’t have any tools with him, the family removed the frontispiece themselves, only to discover a brick wall behind it that obstructed the opening of the tomb. It was at that point, Dumestre said, that the gravedigger produced a mallet and proceeded, rather unceremoniously, to smash a hole in the wall, freeing a barrage of pulverized mortar and brick that pelted family members who looked on in horror.

In fact, it was the Gardner’s lazy avarice that got them caught:

Three weeks ago, eastern New Orleans resident Nanette Nelson contacted the city’s Division of Cemeteries to arrange a burial for her mother-in-law in the family plot in Holt Cemetery. When city employee Alma Gardner told Nelson to bring $350 the day of the service to hire a gravedigger that ultimately didn’t show up, Nelson reported it to higher-ups and discovered that Gardner had violated city law.
Since then, other families have spoken out with similar tales of Gardner’s actions — each involving an ill-prepared or absentee gravedigger that Gardner hired and asked families to pay for.

The original story, which can be read in its entirety on nola.com, includes a picture of the Nelson family digging the grave themselves.

With the possible exception of Lafayette No 1, these are cemeteries that generally cater to the working poor- people for whom $350 could represent a couple of weeks pay, which makes this especially egregious. To take money from people who are already grieving and make their lives even harder? I hope they throw the book at her and will post any updates I see.

The inscription is doubly poignant due to the state of the grave, which is slipping away as well:

You’ll find many depictions of weeping willows in the New Orleans cemeteries, but as far as I know there’s only one actual willow tree:

It’s in the courtyard of Hope Mausoleum, which is technically St. John’s cemetery and sits atop the Hoft grave just outside the far door.

Seen on a tomb, a willow represents (not surprisingly) sadness, although the tree has been used as a gateway to the afterlife since ancient Greece.

This is a tough one.

New Orleans has suffered from a terrible crime rate for a long time, though a lot of work goes into making sure the problem stays as far away from the tourist trade as possible. The biggest problem is colloquially referred to as “thug on thug” crime- one criminal or drug dealer killing his competition- but of course that’s only part of the story. Some of those involved were bystanders, and most are kids who grew up in poverty and without hope. Still, the problem is so pervasive it’s easy to forget all that, scan the story in the paper and then move on- after all, it happened 179 times in 2008. Hell, 6 months before it happened outside my backdoor.

I’m sorry to say that was the case here- I didn’t even remember Arthur Gerald Mitchell. When I saw the marker his family had placed in Holt cemetery, I had to go back and look it up:

There’s nothing online that tells the why, only then when and the where. Fifteen year old Arthur was found shot in the head next to an abandoned Central City school at 9:30 on a sweltering Saturday night. He’d been riding his bike and tried to get away, but didn’t get far before collapsing. He died shortly after arriving at the hospital. Two months later another 15 year old was accused of the murder, his photo appearing in the paper- a young man looking tough in a tee shirt showing off a fistful of fanned out cash.

Presumably because he was a juvenile I couldn’t find anything about the accused from 2008. I do know he was due in court in August of 2009, though whether for this case or something else I couldn’t say. He skipped bail however, and is now due back in court for both the initial offence and what the court is calling “simple escape.”

These “Crime Happened Here” signs are distributed by a local group called Silence is Violence, which was founded after Katrina by the families of victims, encouraging people to come forward, talk to the police, talk to their neighbors, and work together to solve the problem. They work with neighborhoods and schools, and walk the city. These signs were given out for a time as a wake up call to people who’d become tired and jaded- they popped up in the places where people had been robbed, or hurt, filled out by the victims or their families to inspire action.

I hadn’t seen one in a long time, and I certainly hadn’t expected to see one used as a headstone in this pauper’s cemetery, alongside the railroad tracks. It takes your breath away, this young boy with his dog, killed on Saturday night and buried Friday afternoon.

Taken in Holt, All Saint’s Day, 2009

This isn’t one of the big, Save our Cemetery sponsored cleanups, but a much simpler sort:neighbors helping neighbors.

Holt Cemetery Cleaunup

Holt is one of those places that tourists just don’t get to, even though it’s quite close. It’s actually under city, not diocese control, and the city certainly isn’t about to start publicizing Holt as a wonderful place to spend an afternoon- even though it really is an amazing place, full of its own sort of beauty.

Holt is the main pauper’s cemetery in New Orleans (there is a smaller area of the larger Carrollton Cemetery, however). It costs almost nothing to be buried here, but to call the services ‘minimal’ would be generous. You do not own the plot, and it will be reused…likely many times.

The caretaker told me that every inch of the graveyard had been used at least 10 times in the course of his 30 years- the areas under the oaks are particularly prized and reused twice as often. Despite the best efforts of SaveOurCemeteries cleanups and policing the area, it quickly falls into chaos- record keeping is almost nonexistent, and putting coffins (often cardboard boxes) directly into the earth in New Orleans is iffy at the best of times. I have never failed to see dozens of bones on visiting Holt- it rains, the water pushes things up and out, and it can be hard to contain.

Because of this, many of the family members will construct their own boundary markers and weighing systems. Fencing, brick, PVC pipes, you name it, somebody’s used it. Markers are hand lettered, plastic flowers from Walmart stuck in the ground… you never quite know what you’ll find.

And therein lies the paradox. The first thing that you notice is the poverty- there are almost no ‘standard’ headstones- but then you realize how much more personal the place is. They make a much more heartfelt statement, these graves. You get a sense of who their people are, how long they’ve been here.

And a surprising number of them have been here a long, long time. I was bringing guests there one weekend when a long black limo pulled up, and a seemingly affluent family arrived. Theirs was a bit of ground the family had held for years, and although their fortunes had improved, they still consider Holt to be the family’s final resting place.

For more images, check out the flickr set here.

Arthur Smith is something of a legend in New Orleans for his extraordinary devotion to his family’s graves. His grandmother’s oven tomb in St. Louis No 1 is always decorated, but the diocese keeps the adornments to a minimum.

His whimsy is given full expression in other areas of the city, however, particularly in Holt Cemetery, where an ever-changing “art installation” covers his Aunt and Mother’s graves.

Mr. Smith has actually participated in several ‘outsider art’ shows, and used to be often seen pushing his shopping cart around town, searching for treasures to use in his art, his graves, and his biggest and strangest canvas, his house on Music Street:

House photo courtesy of Karen Gadbois of Squandered Heritage - shown boarded up post-Katrina. It’s been torn down and now a vacant lot.

In Holt, his art has more purpose than strictly decorative, however. In this pauper’s cemetery, there are no organized plots, no real records, and no ownership. The families of the dead stake out their territories and defend it as long as they’re able with whatever makeshift memorials they can, and as long as the area stays tended and up to date, it can stay in place. Once an area appears to be abandoned, however, the sexton will allow the land to be re-used, and your family grave will be no more.

One thing you couldn’t call the Smith plot is untended.

These days he’s slowed down quite a bit, but still keeps things updated. There was a fresh coat of lilac paint on everything for Easter, and reading material tucked in the festival chairs.

To see more of Arthur Raymond Smith’s artwork over the years, check out the Flickr Group dedicated to him.