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Statue of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio, located in St. Louis Cemetery Number Three on Esplanade Avenue at Bayou St. John. Padre Pio, who was reputed to be in possession of the Stigmata (the wounds of Christ Crucified), lived from 1885 to 1968, and was canonized by John Paul II in 2002.
Padre Pio was a Capuchin friar. The Capuchins had a big presence in New Orleans. Combine that with the large Italian community here, and it's easy to understand how his cult grew strong here. New Orleanians are big believers in the mystical side of Catholicism. The Lourdes, Fatima, and Guadalupe apparitions of the Virgin Mary are all honored here. New Orleans is still one of the hotspots for the Medugorje cult. There are dozens of shrines honoring saints in the metro area, including major shrines dedicated to St. Jude (at Our Lady of Guadalupe on N. Rampart) and St. Ann (at the church in Metairie bearing her name).
Being the extremely Catholic town New Orleans is, it's no surprise to see devotional statues such as this in a Catholic cemetery. This statue of Padre Pio is relatively new, erected in the spring of 2005.
The inscription on the bottom of the statue reads:
"This humble Capuchin friar surprised the world with his life totally dedicated to prayer and to listening to his brothers and sisters. His body, marked by the Stigmata, demonstrated the intimate connection between death and resurrection."
Beyond the basic fact that a statue of Padre Pio in one of New Orleans' oldest cemeteries makes perfect sense, I also choose to feature this photo today because St. Louis Number Three is where Dr. Ashley Morris, a well-loved member of the New Orleans blogging community who passed away last week, will be buried this Friday. Dr. Morris' life was cut tragically short, and he leaves behind a wife and three small children. The family is struggling with the burden of funeral expenses and other financial obligations. Please consider going to the "Remember Ashley Morris" website and tossing a buck or two or ten their way.
The "original" or "old" section of Metairie Cemetery has two parts. The first is the area that fronted Pontchartrain Blvd. (and the New Basin Canal, before the canal became an expressway), and the "race track," which still follows the pattern of the horse race track that occupied the property prior to the construction of the cemetery. The high-value locations in the cemetery were the plots visible from the street (and canal), and the "infield" of the racetrack. The inside street along the infield became known as "Millionaire's Row," because of the elaborate tombs built around the Army of Northern Virginia tumulus that occupies the western end of the infield itself. Of course, these tombs and memorials were all built between 1880 and 1900, so a person or family with the means to buy a modern-day "millionaire's" tomb couldn't fit in with the original ones. When the cemetery opened up the current main gate in the 1950s, they priced the plots near the gate and on that street according to its status as main entrance.
Al Copeland constructed the first tomb in this section a few years back for his family (and, as of today, himself). Others, such as Ruth Fertel (of Ruth's Chris Steak House fame), and Anne Rice (for her late husband, Stan), bought plots down the street a bit from Copeland, where they constructed lovely tombs worthy of the original Millionaire's Row. Just across from the Rice tomb is this one, for the Besthoff family.
The Besthoffs were the "B" in K&B Drugstores. Sidney Besthoff and his partner, Gustave Katz, opened their first store on Canal Street in 1905. The Katz family sold their interest to the Besthoffs in 1954, and the Besthoffs in turn sold the chain to RiteAid in 1997.
The current patriarch of the Besthoff clan, Sidney Besthoff, III, is well-known as a patron of the arts and a lover of sculpture. The Besthoffs financed the Sidney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, in City Park, behind the New Orleans Museum of Art.
The elegant lines and classic design of the Besthoff tomb reflect the good classy reputation of Mr. Besthoff and his family. Each of the four columns is topped with a replica of "King Solomon's Crown." If you take the six-sided star you get from two interlocking triangles (the Star of David) and bend the corners upward, you get this style of pointed crown. There are no names engraved on the tomb as of this writing, so it's unclear if that means it is unused or if the family has chosen to not inscribe details.
(clicky the image for a larger version)
Copeland family tomb, located at the "modern" entrance to Metairie Cemetery.
Al Copeland, of Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken, passed yesterday. Copeland was from Da Channel and later Arabi. His original chicken shop, "Chicken on the Run" opened in Arabi in 1971. That became Popeyes, and by 1977, he was franchising the concept.
Copeland also opened restaurants as well as fast-food chicken outlets, first Copeland's, which has expanded across the nation, then Straya, a short-lived "California-Creole" concept that had locations Uptown and in Metairie. The Straya locations were converted into "Copeland's Cheesecake Bistro" restaurants. In 1997, a hilarious public dust-up occurred between Copeland and author (and then-New Orleanian) Anne Rice. Rice publicly attacked Copeland's design and decor tastes, harshly criticizing the decor of the Straya's on St. Charles Avenue. Copeland sued Rice for defamation, but the suit was tossed out of court. Interestingly enough, Rice's late husband, Stan, is buried two blocks down from the Copeland tomb in Metairie.
The Copeland tomb is first on the left as you enter the main entrance of the cemetery. Prior to the filling-in of the New Basin Canal and the construction of the Pontchartrain Expressway (I-10), the entrance was located at the corner of Pontchartrain Blvd. and Metairie Road. The construction of an overpass at that intersection made it impractical for vehicular traffic to enter at that corner, so a new entrance was constructed two blocks up on Pontchartrain. The entrance is located just past the "racetrack" portion of the Cemetery.
Al Copeland was a true larger-than-life New Orleanian, and will be missed by many.
The New Basin Canal Monument, located in the neutral ground between West End Blvd. and Pontchartrain Blvd. in Lakeview, between Fillmore Ave. and Robt. E. Lee Blvd. This Celtic cross commemorates the work and sacrifices of the Irish laborers who built the canal. Here's the inscription:
The New Basin Canal was constructed in the 1830s to provide an additional water access to the city from the north. Prior to this time, boats on Lake Pontchartrain could approach the city via Bayou St. John and the Carondelet Canal, which terminated in a turning basin located, appropriately enough, on Basin Street in Faubourg Treme. The new canal terminated with a turning basin located near Rampart St. and Howard Ave., on the Uptown side of Canal St.
While this monument isn't in a cemetery, it is a memorial to the many men who gave their lives in the construction of the canal. In the 1830s, the path between Faubourg Ste. Marie and West End was nothing but mosquito-infested swamp. Hundreds of the laborers who worked on the Canal contracted yellow fever and died. The Irish were employed to build the canal because they were cheap labor. Slaves were expensive, and slave owners were not going to risk their investments on such a project. Better to let the Irish do it.
Many of those Irishmen are buried in St. Patrick's Cemetery at the head of Canal Street, two blocks away from the Canal they built.
Legislation was passed authorizing the closure of the New Basin Canal was passed in 1938, but World War II delayed the actual work, and the canal was filled in after the war. The Pontchartrain Expressway was constructed over the filled-in canal, running from Veterans Blvd. and West End Blvd. into town, eventually linking with the Crescent City Connection bridge when it was constructed in the late 1950s.
After the storm, the neutral ground between West End and Pontchartrain was used as a dumping area for the debris accumulated from the houses of Lakeview and Gentilly that were victims of the Federal Flood as they were gutted. FEMA trash-hauling contractors would pick up the moldy drywall and other debris from in front of houses and dump it in the wide neutral ground. By December of 2005, the hills of debris at this location, just a block from the monument above, reached heights well over 30 feet, and spanned several blocks.
Sisters of Mercy community tomb in St. Joseph's Cemetery.
St. Joseph's is located at Washington and Loyola Avenues, in Central City. It's NOT a good neighborhood for sightseeing, keep that in mind and exercise Urban Common Sense.
In New Orleans, the families that own plots in Catholic cemeteries tend to follow ethnic lines. The Creoles in the St. Louis cemeteries, the Irish in the three St. Patrick cemeteries, the Italians in St. Vincent de Paul, and the Germans in St. Joseph. St. Joseph's was opened in 1854, founded by the German Orphan Asylum Association. In 1857, St. Mary's Assumption parish on Constance and Josephine decided to build a huge new church. They dismantled the old, wood-frame church (that's really just a chapel in size), and moved it, board by board, to St. Joseph Cemetery, where it was used as a burial chapel. In the 1990s, author Anne Rice bought the old Redemptorist residence on Prytania and Third Streets in the Garden District. The people of the Garden District had been going to Mass there for decades. Not wanting to simply re-join St. Mary's Parish, the Garden District's Catholics received permission to relocate the burial chapel to an empty lot on Jackson Avenue, between Prytania and St. Charles. So, now there are once again three churches in the same physical parish, just like the 19th Century. St. Mary's is the main parish church now. It was originally for the Germans. St. Alphonsus across the street on Constance was for the Irish community. The French had a small chapel on Jackson that burned in the 1880s that served the very small Garden District Creole community.
The tomb in the photo is typical of "society" tombs throughout the city. This one is for an order of nuns, the Sisters of Mercy.
cross-posted from CitiesOfTheDead (dot net)
Socola family tomb in St. Louis Cemetery Number Three, located on Esplanade Ave. by Bayou St. John.
One of the things that will catch my eye when I'm walking through a cemetery is an anomoly. This tomb has a glaring one, a modern metal plaque on the front stone. The architecture of this particular tomb is pretty common of late-19th/early 20th Century, but the metal plaque obviously was added much later. You can see another plaque on the side of the tomb as well.
Here's a closeup of the plaque on the front. The arch at the top of the tomb has "Famille Wm. Socola" engraved on it. William Socola, Jr., is the first name on the plaque, and the 1898 date confirms the tomb's approximate construction date. Madeline M. Socola could have been William Jr.'s wife or daughter.
The later names on the list show one of the problems geneaologists have when researching burial places in New Orleans. Looks like a Socola, married a Robert at some point. Since the wives often outlive the husbands, they often bury their husbands in their family's tomb (unless husband's family has a tomb of their own). It's usually easy for the woman to go to her family's matriarch, get the deed of the tomb to the funeral home, and take care of the arrangements. To hunt down an ancestor from New Orleans, be sure to look at both paternal and maternal burial sites.
The plaque on the side of this tomb also caught my eye. I didn't know "Mr. Kenny," but I knew and still know many men who are just like him, Boy Scout leaders who touched lives. I remember my Scoutmasters just as fondly as Troop 21 remembers Mr. Robert. When I go to adult Scout meetings (I'm an Assistant Scoutmaster for my son's troop), men will come up to me and introduce themselves, telling me how they remember my dad and all the work he did with Scouting when he was alive. (I always joke that I left Scouting when I was in eighth grade, but my dad never quit.) It was nice of the Socolas and Roberts to let the boys and men whose lives this leader touched to remember him in this way.
The stone at the bottom center of the tomb is the military-issue headstone provided by the VA for deceased veterans. It's for George Robert, who was in the US Army in both World Wars, retiring as a Major. He also received the Distinguished Service Medal.
Greenwood Cemetery, from the westermost road inside the cemetery. In the background is First Baptist Church, a "megachurch" whose street address is Canal Blvd., on the opposite side of the cemetery. Behind the photographer is I-10, heading into downtown New Orleans.
A few weeks ago, there was some concern on neighborhood e-mail lists that First Baptist Church will be applying for a zoning variance to erect a large lighted sign on the back of the church that will be visible to drivers on I-10. The attitude of church members is that they have 700' of frontage to the interstate and they want to exploit that for evangelism.
This confused me, because when I drive by there, I see that the railroad right-of-way fronts I-10, and Greenwood Cemetery is right behind that. I think the church is talking about this frontage:
The church has a sign along the railroad right-of-way, here:
But they don't own that property.
The church wants to put up a sign on this side of their property, overlooking the cemetery. While I respect their right to do what they wish on their property, they're not being very good neighbors. When you come into New Orleans at night on I-10W, you cross over the 17th Street Canal and continue on the old Pontchartrain Expressway. Your first experience in New Orleans is darkness.
The Darkness of the Cities of the Dead.
On the right are Lake Lawn Cemetery/Mausoleum and Metairie Cemetery. On the left is Greenwood Cemetery. There are no artificial lights in any of these cemeteries. When the sun sets, it's pitch black inside them. Even at 60mph on the interstate, this darkness has a profound impact on visitors and locals alike.
First Baptist doesn't care about this, though. They want to put destroy a setting that has been around for 135 years. Travelers on the New Basin Canal experienced this on boats before the canal was filled in, and motorists have felt it since the 1940s.
I urge First Baptist to consider both the community and the dead. There are many things here that are uniquely New Orleans, and our cemeteries are one of them. I would also like to think that good Christians like the people of First Baptist would respect the dead and their families enough not to light their resting places up like Vegas.
Tomb of Edward Pilsbury (d. 1882) in St. Louis Cemetery Number Three, on Esplanade Avenue in Faubourg St. John.
Pilsbury was the 38th Mayor of New Orleans, holding the office from November of 1878 to December of 1880.
The tomb is unique for a number of reasons. It's on the end of a row of tombs, so the plot is larger than most. It's almost large enough to be a coping, but the tomb built there is just a "single." The obelisk is typical of late 19th century cemetery architecture. Egyptian themes were very popular at that time.
A Durkee photo of Holt Cemetery from 1907. Holt is New Orleans' "potter's field," the burial ground for indigent folks. It was opened in 1879, and is located off of City Park Avenue, near Delgado Junior College.
Because it's a potter's field, few graves in Holt have stone markers. Most, like those seen in this photo, are made of wood. As the wooden markers decay, the look of the cemetery changes every few years. The "feel" doesn't however, as new wooden markers are lovingly placed as new burials take place. Jazz great Charles "Buddy" Bolden is buried in Holt, but the exact location of his grave is unknown.
Holt was quite the eyesore in the early 1990s, but volunteers from Lakeview as well as from Save Our Cemeteries worked to clean the cemetery up, so it's more accessible to visitors. Holt's location along the Metairie Ridge spared it from the worst of the storm flooding, but wind and water did take their toll on the markers.
(photo courtesy New Orleans Public Library)
