CitiesOfTheDead (dot net)

(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 Ave. 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.

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.

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.

Tomb of the Societe D'Assistance Mutuelle, La France. The society was founded in 1894 and the tomb constructed in 1902. The turn of the century was a very busy period of expansion for St. Louis #3, which is located on Esplanade Avenue near Bayou St. John.

Tombs were expensive propositions for many families in the city, so families would form organizations to pool their money, build, and maintain a tomb. Most of these "burial societies" formed along ethnic or neighborhood lines.

This tomb is built on two adjoining plots. It is different from other society tombs in that its vaults are two by four, when usually these tombs are four by three. the marble coverings of the vaults are missing, revealing its brick construction. The vase in front of the bottom right vault has the name "Downey" engraved on it.

Sections 43 (left) and 44 of Chalmette National Cemetery, in St. Bernard Parish. The cemetery was originally part of the land blocked off by New Orleanians in the 1820s as a memorial for the Battle of New Orleans, which took place on 8-Jan-1815. During the Union occupation of New Orleans in the Civil War, several acres at the rear of the battlefield (behind the British starting lines) were isolated from the battlefield, and a cemetery for Civil War dead from both sides constructed.

Section 43 appears at first glance to be almost empty when compared with 44, but that's not the case. It's completely full, but most of those buried there are "unknowns." Most of those men were Union "Colored Troops." Freed slaves who enlisted in the Union Army didn't usually have the same paper trail following them that white soldiers did, so it was difficult to identify them when they were killed. Each grave is marked by a small square stone that has an identification number. The graves may not have names, but they are treated with all the honor and respect shown anyone else resting in this cemetery.

Originally, Confederate soldiers were buried alongside Union troops in this cemetery. In the 1890s, however, the Daughters of the Confederacy raised funds to construct a tumulus in Greenwood Cemetery at the head of Canal Street, and the CSA dead from Chalmette were re-interred there. The Confederate organization found it offensive that their dead were buried in the same cemetery as Colored Troops.

The view in the background is the perspective that the British had as they approached the American defenses at the Battle of New Orleans.

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.