Coping of Andrew Jackson Higgins, founder of Higgins Industries and inventor of the Higgins Boat, in Metairie Cemetery.

"Andrew Higgins ... is the man who won the war for us. ... If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower, General of the Army, President of the United States of America

Almost more importantly to me personally, Professor Ambrose agreed 100% with Ike. Amphibious landings were a key component to the Allied strategy in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, and Andrew Higgins was the man who made that happen with his design of an easy to build landing craft:

The development of the Higgins Boat came from Higgins' experience building tugboats for use on the Mississippi River and crew boats that serviced the oil industry in South Louisiana. Built of plywood, the boats were easily constructed, and used most notably in the Normandy landings on D-Day.

A fully-restored Higgins Boat is on display at the National World War II Museum.

Mr. Higgins' coping is simple and understated by New Orleans standards. Perhaps this is a reflection of his Nebraska upbringing that he preferred an in-ground burial. The coping's headstone is very modest:

As we honor our active-duty troops and veterans this Memorial Day, let's not forget the hard-working men and women who dedicated their lives to making the tools of victory.

"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."

(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.

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.

Tomb of Ernest Nathan "Dutch" Morial, 57th Mayor of New Orleans, in St. Louis Cemetery Number One on Basin Street.

It's fitting that we feature Dutch on MLK day, because he was such an important part of the New Orleans civil rights movement. Dutch was the city's premier "first black." He was the first African-American:

• Graduate of LSU Law School
• Member of the Louisiana House of Representatives
• Juvenile Court Judge
• State Court of Appeals Judge (4th Circuit)
• Mayor

Morial defeated three white candidates in 1977 to win the city's top job. He won with 90% of the black vote and 20% of the white vote. Many white voters considered Dutch to be a "safe" candidate, because he was light-skinned and preferred to work from the inside for civil rights, litigating rather than demonstrating. He built a political machine that was strong enough to get his son, Marc, elected for two terms, in 1993 and 1997.

Dutch represents an interesting segment of the black community in New Orleans, the "Creoles." The Creole community has been on the forefront of civil rights issues in this country long before Dutch, as it was Homer Plessey's desire to ride in the "white" car of a train on the East Louisiana Railroad line. Plessey's great-grandmother was black, making him an "Octaroon," and by definition under Louisiana law, black. The resulting lawsuit legitimized the concept "separate but equal" public facilities.

There's a perception, most recently publicly vocalized by Spike Lee, that the black Creole community of New Orleans aren't "black enough." This view of the Creole community goes back throughout New Orleans' history. It's been romanticized in dozens of romance novels and films (most of which resemble the actual history of the city as much as Hollywood westerns represent the HBO series, "Deadwood"). While there is no doubt that many light-skinned black folks tried to "pass," it's totally unfair to tag the Creole families in general. The old-line black families of New Orleans became a community amongst themselves, particularly in the Third and Seventh Wards. The construction of I-10 along N. Claiborne Ave. in the 1970s broke up much of the feeling of community in those neighborhoods, and many families moved to other parts of town. There's still an element of "Creole society" in town, however, kept alive by black Carnival organizations and social clubs.

One of the best stories of Creoles in modern New Orleans was told on the television show, "Frank's Place," in 1987. The main character of the show, Frank (played by Tim Reid), returned to New Orleans after going to school and living "up north" to run the family restaurant. As a visible member of the black community, Frank was invited to join a black men's club. His staff at the restaurant derided the invitation to the "Capital C Club," because it was club of Creole men. To get in, you had to pass the "Schwegmann bag test." If you placed a brown grocery bag on your arm and your skin was darker, you didn't qualify. They were inviting Frank to be the "first black" in an all-black club! "Frank's Place" is by far the best show ever made in/about New Orleans. It's a shame it's not available on DVD.

In spite of the Plessey decision, Jim Crow laws, and the strong sentiment of racism that still exists in the city, New Orleans' Catholic cemeteries have always been integrated. Homer Plessey is buried just around the corner from Dutch in St. Louis #1. Dutch's tomb is next to the most well-known tomb in the cemetery, the one where Marie Laveau is reputed to rest.

Dutch's legacy is a positive one overall, in spite of his polarizing personality. After his death, the city named the massive convention center that was the backbone of the 1984 World's Fair after him. The Morial Convention Center is one of the most important components of the city's economy and a fitting tribute to one of our civil rights leaders.

DeJan family coping in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Gentilly. Mount Olivet is a historically black cemetery. The three St. Louis cemeteries are not specifically segregated, because the Creoles had so much interaction with Les Gens De Couleur Libres, the Free Peoples of Color, that segregation would have broken up some the burial of some families. Other communities, such as the Irish, Germans, and Italians, had more separation between black and white. As the black community grew and Jim Crow became stronger, the community had a need for its own cemeteries.

This photo shows a number of aspects of New Orleans cemeteries. The DeJan coping is a typical working-class family grave. Tombs were expensive, but Mount Olivet is on (relatively) high ground, so there were more in-ground burials. In the center background, you can see a "society" tomb, where there are vaults in three rows of four. Various social and benevolent societies would purchase a tomb such as this, because pooling the resources enabled members to have traditional, above-ground burial. On the right side in the background is a granite "double" tomb that is typical of New Orleans cemeteries.

The headstones on the DeJan coping are military-style. The one on the left lists two veterans, Lawrence B. Blackwell, who served in WWII, and Arthur DeJan, who served in WWI. The right-hand stone lists Sidney DeJan, who was in the Infantry in WWI, and Bienville Ancar, Jr., who did not serve in the military.

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.