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CHAPTER 1
The Grande Dame City of the Dead—St. Louis Cemetery #1
“The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds—the cemeteries—and they’re a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres—palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay—ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who’ve died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn’t pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time.”
—Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One
OF ALL OF THE CITIES IN THE WORLD to be buried, New Orleans is always my first choice.
The art of dying has been refined to an art form in NOLA. The legendary jazz funerals are the most distinguished, eloquent, and touching rituals juxtaposed against modern-day living as a fitting send-off to the spirit world. Based on a combination of African and European traditions, a jazz funeral begins with a processional march of the deceased’s family, friends, and a brass band, which leads the way from the funeral home to the cemetery.
As the music attracts the attention of passersby and neighbors, people recognize what is occurring and often join the group in the march in what is described as the second line. The first line is the official group that received a parade permit or, in this case, a permit for the funeral march. The second line is comprised of people who hear the call and lure of the music and spontaneously join in to participate in the celebration or to be a part of the final send-off for the deceased. Second-line participants often carry colorful parasols and wave handkerchiefs in the air while dancing down the street. The dances are organic, free, and a celebrated art form.
Pathway through St. Louis Cemetery #1
The music is somber on the journey to the cemetery, portraying the grief and loss experienced by those left behind. Once the deceased has been laid to rest, the procession marches on to the place designated for everyone to gather together. Along this march, the music picks up in tempo and becomes lively, both as a celebration of the life of the person laid to rest and to symbolize that life goes on. Most people begin to dance with abandon, and the emotional release is powerful and palatable and spreads throughout the group in the streets. Some of the most recognized songs played are “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.” It is one of the most stirring, intimate, loving, joyful, and heartfelt experiences one can observe, and I can think of no finer way to be laid to rest.
ENTER THE CITIES OF THE DEAD
Once the deceased has been carried soulfully through the procession, they are laid to rest in cemeteries, which, in New Orleans, are described as the cities of the dead.
St. Louis Cemetery #1, founded in 1789, is one of the most famous cemeteries in the country. Located on the corner of St. Louis and Basin Streets about a block away from the French Quarter, the cemetery is so distinctive that it’s nearly impossible to miss. The reason is that in New Orleans, the cemeteries are filled with so many aboveground tombs that they look like small cities rather than the expansive lawns with small stones and crosses that people are more familiar with in other parts of the country. The cemeteries—with their tiny buildings located so close together—look like a miniature-sized city, which has earned them the nickname the cities of the dead.
There are actually three St. Louis Cemeteries in New Orleans, named respectively #1, #2, and #3, but St. Louis Cemetery #1 is the one that receives the greatest attention. St. Louis Cemetery #2 is several blocks away from #1 and is much larger in size—roughly three square blocks compared to the one-block size of #1. St. Louis Cemetery #2 is the final resting place of many talented and legendary jazz and rhythm and blues musicians, including one of my favorites, Ernie K. Doe. It is also the resting place of Henriette Delille, the founder of the Sisters of the Holy Family, who is currently being considered for sainthood by the Catholic church. Farthest away from the French Quarter is St. Louis Cemetery #3, located near Bayou St. John, which has some of the most beautiful and elaborate tombs of all.
Many people who visit New Orleans are surprised to discover that the crescent-shaped city is actually below sea level, which is what led to aboveground burials in tombs. One of the most interesting places to view this anomaly is near Café du Monde across from Jackson Square, where you can walk up a flight of steps on the levee to see the Mississippi River above the area. There’s something very eerie the first time you do this, as you have the feeling of standing on the edge of a very full bowl of water and realizing that, with one big splash, the water could come spilling over. Indeed this is what occurred when the levees failed in the lower Ninth Ward, causing the area to flood after Hurricane Katrina.
Interestingly, though, when sitting at Café du Monde enjoying some beignets (fried doughnuts covered in mounds of powdered sugar) and French coffee while listening to musicians performing live on the streets, the slightly disturbing situation of the water looming above nearby escapes your thoughts, and you find yourself swirling back into the energy and falling in love with New Orleans.
Be that as it may, New Orleans is still under sea level and slowly descending further at a rate of a quarter inch each year. Built on swampy wet grounds, early settlers soon discovered that it was impossible to bury the dead underground, for as soon as a good rain came through, the buried caskets would float up to the top and sometimes even shoot out of the ground, to the shock and unsettling grief of family and friends. Even more gruesome, over time some of the wooden caskets would break apart underground, which allowed decaying body parts and bones to float up to the surface and down the streets as they were carried away by the water. Several attempts were made over the years to find a way to keep the caskets underground—including boring holes in the bottom of the caskets so that the water could enter the casket and flow through the holes into the ground—along with attempts to weigh the caskets down to make them heavier. However, neither idea worked, and the dead continued to rise when floodwaters and heavy rains came through. It was as if the dead wanted to be considered and not forgotten as a part of New Orleans, even long after they had left their mortal coil.
After several particularly heavy storms where the dead floated down the streets, the decision was made to establish a system of vaults and aboveground tombs where the dead would be laid to rest in peace. While many attribute flooding as the only reason that the wall vaults and tombs were built, some historians and scholars believe that this was only part of the decision for this design. As New Orleans grew as a city with a wealthier population, many of the settlers from France and Spain desired to offer tribute to their dead in the customs from their countries, which included burying them in the European style of aboveground vaults and tombs of this design.
St. Louis Cemetery #1 covers the expanse of only one city block, yet thousands of people are buried in this cemetery. If you do the math, you’ll see that no matter how close the tombs are, it would be very difficult to have this many people buried here on this land without the aboveground tombs reaching skyscraper status in height—which they do not. How then are so many people buried in such a small area? The answer lies within each tomb. Tombs, unlike gravesites, are designed to hold multiple people rather than one individual. Most of the tombs at St. Louis were created to house generations of a family. In other cases, what are known as society tombs were built and designed by members of a group, which established a designated number of wall vaults where members are buried together, and the membership continues to maintain and care for the tomb in perpetuity. Some of these society tombs are among the most striking and distinctive in the cemeteries. My favorite style is the sarcophagus tombs, which have a front entrance area and tend to be surrounded by wrought iron gates, giving the impression of a grand home. The simplest design
