All Saints, All Souls, and The Day After

Once again, the Saturday of November 1st, the Feast of All Saints, dawned as another gorgeous day in the Crescent City -- perfectly clear blue skies, light breeze, warm temperatures, low humidity. I joked to Big Man, "This is getting boring!" but it really isn't, it's wonderful. (I can remember All Saints Days when heavy coats were in order, so this weather was a blessing indeed.)

Our first errand on All Saints Day was to purchase the pots of chrysanthemums. This year, I wanted purple, and these were easily and quickly obtained from our locally-owned grocery store, right in the front of the store. (But it wasn't quite like the old days, when starting on October 30th, the grocery stores would set up tents in the parking lot to sell the mums to you so conveniently, you practically didn't have to get out of your car, and could just head to the cemeteries.) We got 6 pots, for, as you will see, we had a lot of stops to make.

Our first cemetery visit was to historic Cypress Grove, in the old cemetery neighborhood at the lake end of Canal Street. (Our drive took us past The Mortuary, a stately hundred year old former mortuary that is now a seasonal haunted house with many special effects and scary happenings. We have plans to go next weekend, during its final offering of the Halloween season. Big Man and I love that sort of thing and were big devotees of the haunted Eastern State Prison, former home to Al Capone, in Philadelphia.)

We had pots of mums for our founding ministers, Theodore Clapp and Sylvester Larned, who are buried together in the crypt for the Volunteer Fire Fighters, in the gated right corner of Cypress Grove as you enter through the giant Egyptian-inspired entrance. Luckily, the gate was unlocked and we went inside, placing our mums on the ground in front of their names. I spent a little time asking for their blessings on my congregation -- er, their, OUR congregation -- knowing that they'd understand our challenges, having themselves faced quite a lot (epidemics, wars, bankruptcy) during their ministries here. Their tomb was well-kept and needed no clean-up or trimming of weeds. We spent just a little time there, visiting a few of our favorite tombs, such as the Chinese-American Association vault, which combines elements of Christianity and Buddhism. (Inside the arched vault, it smelled strongly of recent incense.) Very few other tombs at Cypress Grove were decorated or seemed to have been visited.

The next stop was one of the oldest burying grounds in the city, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Two pots here too, for we came to honor two black Creoles who have had, in their respective times, enormous influence on New Orleans. Members of either the diocese or the cemetery preservation group had set up a table at the entrance, with books and pamphlets to sell, and when they saw Big Man and me carrying in pots of mums, they thanked us for coming. That felt funny to me -- I wasn't bringing the flowers to be thanked, or for recognition by living people. But I'm sure they meant it in good spirit. (Maybe I just should have said, "You're welcome" but I didn't, since it didn't feel right.)

We cut around their table and made a hard right a few tombs in. (This path is so familiar to me I could probably do it in my sleep, or blindfolded.) This brought us right in front of the tomb of Mayor "Dutch" Morial, and of course there were already mums there, a beautiful bright orange, probably brought by Morial family members. I put my purple mums on the other side of the ledge, and placed my hand on the "Keep the Drive Alive" inscription in the shiny granite. "Dutch," I whispered, "you would be so excited right now, this presidential election. Looks like it's really going to happen, and even if it doesn't, nobody's ever come this far before. You'd be proud." (Although I did have to wonder to myself if it would have bothered Dutch that it was somebody else getting this historic first.)

Then we turned to our right, where Marie Laveau's tomb sit neighborly next to Dutch's. Her tomb was marked, as always, with myriad triple Xs, and had laid out in front of it the diverse and various offerings of Mam'selle's diverse and varied followers and fans -- Mardi Gras beads, lots of dimes, glasses and bottles and cups of alcoholic beverages, flowers real and silk, notes from petitioners, food items, cigarettes. (This time, there were no marijuana joints as I have seen in the past.) A Creole Voodoo priestess dressed all in white and with a white tignon on her head was answering questions from a tour group, ironically standing next to the rather new metal sign declaring it a crime to mark or deface any tomb. (As if that would stop anybody!)

Big Man and I put the Lady's flowers on the side of the tomb, next to all the assorted stuff, and I pressed my forehead to the left side of her tomb. I thanked her for bringing us home, for finding Big Man a musical job so fast, for the well-bring of my family and church. I asked for her future care, not really as a petition to her, just to be kept on her mind. Then I made my way to the other 3 sides, repeating the prayers in the traditional "4 Corners" ritual, ending in front. People were arriving, most of them the curious, but we ignored them. We pushed a little to get past them, and got to the exit gate, where we quickly turned and walked out backwards (so as not to turn our backs to Mam'selle). Whether the ladies at the table there thought that was strange or not we can't say.

The next cemetery was St. Vincent de Paul, in the upper Ninth Ward, my father's family tomb, where my grandparents, one uncle and one aunt -- my father's older sister who died as a teenager in the great flu epidemic in the early 20th century -- are all buried. My father's ashes were not interred there -- in fact, we scattered them at City Park, on the golf course where he spent so many happy hours after his retirement -- but being there always brings him to mind since the All Saints ritual was something we used to do together, along with my son when he was little. To my disappointment, the face of the family tomb was marred by some black substance (mold?), some ugly discoloration of the aging white marble. I told Big Man we'd have to come back with cleaning supplies in a few days. The black gunk was so thick on the little triangular plinth that marked Daddy's sister, engraved "Our Beatrice" (pronounced the New Orleans way, "be-ATT-triss") that it was unreadable. This would not do. I felt badly about having to leave it in that condition, but was reassured that we'd be back soon. Big Man stood on a concrete vase to place the pot of mums up on the shelf in front of the family tomb. (We had to remove the full bottle of beer from it in order for him to use it as a boost, but we were careful to replace the grave offering when we were done.)

Two days later, we were back, with a step stool and cleaning brushes and some cleaning solvent, hopefully strong enough to remove the gunk without harming the marble. Unfortunately, we couldn't get high enough, and had to tip-toe to reach as far as we could to scrub the discoloration off. We made some progress, but we found that the marble face plate was loose and so the whole effort was precarious. Big Man handed down to me Beatrice's little marker and I scrubbed it hard, so it was readable, if not totally pristine. Since we had extra cleaning water, we did a few of the other graves around the family, just to be neighborly.

Last errand of this year's All Saints/All Souls was Lakelawn Metairie, to pay our respects to music legend Louis Prima, who in a way was responsible for bringing Big Man and me together. With exquisite courtesy, an elderly lady employee walked us around the combined funeral home/office building, til we got to the person who could give us a map and directions. He marked the map for us, and asked us if we knew what was the inscription on Louis's tomb. In unison, Big Man and I both replied, "Just a Gigolo," and the funeral director smiled.

We found Louis, with the angel Gabriel on top, blowing a trumpet. Big Man called an Italian friend back in Jersey, a GIANT Prima fan, and we took pictures, and vowed to come back soon. We noted that Louis's last wife Gia had apparently "expunged" Louis's previous family, had with Keely Smith, and the list of children did not include any of Keely and Louis's kids.

Interestingly enough, the Prima tomb is located in what could be called an Italian neighborhood in Metairie cemetery -- Louis was surrounded by several Italian societies, and tombs of all kinds of folks with Italian surnames. I was tickled to find his next-neighbor was the Brocato family, better known in New Orleans as the Moran family of Moran's Restaurant fame. Diamond Jim and his older son Jimmy. Wow. Brought back all kinds of memories of the alredo made at your table on chafing dishes, and the gigantic, "diamond-studded" meatballs they were so famous for.

We did a little touring around, which you have to do while you're there, there's just so much to see. The Civil War monuments, Mrs. Moriarity, the exquisite and heart-breaking Hyman memorial, with the beautifully carved marble angel collapsed in grief, the many mini-mausoleums with artistic stained glass, the numerous historic families and individuals. The founding family of the old New Orleans newspaper, The Picayune, has a bronze newspaper on their elaborate tomb. Two famous New Orleans hotelier families, the Grunewalds and the Monteleones, buried side by side. By chance we came upon the family tomb of the Chinese Lee family and saw, in addition to the name of Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee, Mort Sahl Jr., listed as "beloved son, grandson, nephew." I had completely forgotten that comedian Mort Sahl had been briefly married to Playboy Playmate China Lee, who was Harry's sister. One of those strange only-in-New-Orleans things.

Since we love to poke around in historic cemeteries so much, we know we'll be back to all four in the days to come. But we felt good about doing our duty for All Saints. The traditions must be observed!