Lake Lawn Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans

On a blazingly hot and dazzlingly Friday morning this past June, I left New Orleans’ Greenwood Cemetery and walked the two blocks along City Park Avenue to where it turns into Metairie Road and the Lake Lawn Metairie Cemetery begins. I wasn’t sure where the entrance was, but when I arrived at the corner of Metairie Road and Pontchartrain Boulevard, the fence was low so I hopped over it and onto the property. I’m certainly no stranger to climbing fences to get into cemeteries, so clambering over a four-foot-high steel fence with no barbed wire was hardly a problem. Also, I wasn’t trespassing – the cemetery was open – I just didn’t know where the nearest entrance was.

Metairie Cemetery map showing original horse race track oval at left (ref.)

I never did find any of the official entrances – the place is so large (150 acres) you could walk for days and not find one. What adds to the feeling of being lost in here, for me, is the fact that unlike many other Victorian cemeteries, it is all flat. There are no hills, valleys, or lakes to break up the landscape. Nothing to really help you get your bearings at a glance. Without a map and a smartphone GPS, I think I might still be there walking in circles! It's layout is in fact, circular and confusing. Ovular, to be more precise – the cemetery had been a horserace track before the Civil War! The name "Lake Lawn" refers to the surrounding geographic area, by the way, which is part of the Lake District (Lake Pontchartrain), and "Metairie" is a neighborhood within the city of New Orleans. I’ve referred to this cemetery as the Metairie for about twenty years, so I will continue to refer to the city’s crown jewel by that name.

Given my interest in abandoned cemeteries (I had a book published this year called Abandoned and Forgotten Cemetries of Philadelphia and its Environs), a friend suggested recently that the cemeteries of New Orleans are the opposite of abandoned cemeteries! Meaning, that most of them are not only meticulously cared for, but are easily New Orleans’ main tourist attractions. There are about FORTY cemeteries to chose from if you want to visit, ranging from those of the grand Victorian style like Metairie, to the grim and scary vampire cemeteries like Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 such as have been popularized by writer Anne Rice. And there is everything in between. If you are a cemetery traveler, NOLA is a crucible of wonder.

One of many grand tombs at the Metairie

I would imagine that no matter how or at what point you enter the Metairie, you would be greeted with astounding funerary architecture and sculpture. The opulence and grandiosity of these monuments is in itself very distracting, leading you off in unplanned directions. So there I was, in the southeast corner near the intersection of Metairie Road and Pontchartrain Boulevard (better known as I-10, or Interstate Ten). The cemetery, being south of I-10, of course brought to mind that great Sonny Landreth song, South of I-10. Landreth is a Louisiana musician who has developed a signature slide technique on electric guitar that is absolutely stunning (click link to hear the song!). But I digress (which is what most endears me to you, right?).

Once inside the Metairie, I didn’t know which way to turn. The only things I REALLY wanted to see were the “Lost at Sea” angel memorial sculpture and Anne Rice’s mausoleum. You can spend days in here and not see everything. I had only a few hours. One thing I didn’t do was look up some of the other interesting memorials in the Metairie. 

As I look at the map of the property on my laptop while writing this, I realize that I totally missed the opportunity to see and photograph the “Weeping Angel” in the Chapman H. Hyams mausoleum. This is one of several reproductions of the 1894 Angel of Grief that English sculptor William Wetmore Story created for his wife Emelyn’s grave in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, Italy (I was in Rome a few years ago, and also missed seeing the original). I had photographed another in a cemetery in Colma, California, years ago (see my photo below), and I really would’ve like to have seen the one in the Metairie (here's a link to that one, truly an exquisite sculpture), but, I didn’t do my research ahead of time. To make matters worse, I realize now that I was only one section away from the Weeping Angel - when I hopped the fence, I went in the opposite direction. 

"Angel of Grief" version in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, Colma, CA.

Louisiana Division-Army of the Tennessee tomb

As I tried to get my bearings on the grounds, I realized I was right behind the tumulus (burial mound with crypts inside) of the Louisiana Division-Army of the Tennessee. The guy who is buried in here actually STARTED the Civil War! According to Michael Murphy’s book, Fear Dat, General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard ordered the first shots fired on Fort Sumpter. Speaking of the French, I noticed two guys in cowboy hats moseying toward the gated entrance to the tomb. I figured they’d have Southern good-ole-boy drawls so I moved in on them, thinking I’d catch some audio, to pair with a video of the memorial. As I approached them, they were speaking … French.

One of the seemingly countless lanes of tombs that make up the Metairie.

I checked Google maps on my phone to locate Anne Rice’s mausoleum (she died in 2021), thinking it might be all black and Gothy, with who knows what offerings laid at her door. They keep having to clean voodoo queen Marie Laveaux’s tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 because of all the offerings -  graffiti, beads, and candles left there. I figured Rice’s might be marked similarly. I got my bearings and headed in the wrong direction. By the way, when I was last in NOLA in the early 2000s (pre-Hurricane Katrina in 2005), I just walked into St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, and saw Laveaux's tomb. These days, it is only open for guided tours. A shame, really, because it is one of the few cemeteries that is within easy walking distance of the French Quarter.

Wildlife of the Metairie

The Metairie is so large, so opulent, so confusing, that I really wished I had a car, like the last time I was here. As I didn’t have a car for this trip, I took a ride-share from the airport a few days prior. As we passed over a large cemetery, I asked the driver if he had ever been in the Metairie. He responded, “Not yet.” Ha. He then added, “If I was going to pay a million dollars to be buried in there, I would want it to come with a guarantee that I’d get into heaven.” You could easily drop a cool mil for a standard-sized tomb here. 

During my last visit, I stumbled upon these magnificent angels atop a tomb. I named the photo “Lost at Sea” because this Aldige family tomb commemorates a “mother, sister, and niece lost at sea on steamship Burgoyne, July 4, 1898.” I really wanted to see these beautiful angels again, but had no idea where in this vast place they were.  As I ooh’d and ah’d my way past a life-sized bronze buffalo and cathedral-like white marble mausoleums, I came to a small glade of trees. It was very hot this morning and I swigged some of my water. As I ducked under the trees to get out of the piercing sun, a flock of birds singing a plangent song drew my attention. As I looked in their direction, I saw the angels! They were atop a tomb, a bit smaller than I’d remembered. Still, I suppose, they were life-sized.

When I was here in the early 2000s, I photographed these angels with black and white film (there were no digital cameras back then) and a zoom lens. I had a real camera (digital) with me this time and photographed the angels again with a zoom lens. Not only did I have rudimentary photographic equipment that first time, but I had a rudimentary understanding of the monument. “Lost at Sea” has kind of a romantic connotation, doesn't it? If you look at my recent image below, you’ll see that the angels were sculpted standing in a boat. Again, symbolic, romantic. However, when you think about a steamship accident, it does conjure horrible thoughts related to a boiler blowing up and the ship going down in flames. Turns out, the situation involving the deaths of the three Aldige women was far worse. The phrase “women and children first” has a chilling meaning related to this monument. But I will save that for a future blog post.

When I was last in NOLA, I was mainly photographing the angel statues in cemeteries. I mean, that’s ALL I photographed in HUNDREDS of cemeteries. I did that for ten years, paying little attention to epitaphs, engravings, or any story behind the monument. I’m surprised I even read the “Lost at Sea” engraving back then on this particular memorial. I was mainly enamored with the art and architecture found in these Victorian sculpture gardens. I might tell my younger self to read more inscriptions! As my friend Joe Lex says in his book, All Bones Considered, each headstone and each inscription silently pleads for you to listen to its story. As I looked up the Aldige monument on the internet to write this, I am shocked at its history. But again, I’ll save that for a future post.

Memorial stone in the Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans

I think maybe next time I visit a cemetery in some distant land, I really should plan a little better. As I was researching for this blog, I inadvertently discovered that one of my heroes, country-rock pioneer and star Gram Parsons, is buried about a mile from the Metairie in the Garden of Memories Cemetery. If I’m ever back in NOLA, I must visit his grave. 

Society tomb in Metairie

After leaving the "Lost at Sea" angels, I walked between rows and rows of tombs, which seemingly went on forever. I kept checking my phone map for Anne Rice’s mausoleum, to make sure I was not veering off in the wrong direction again. But then I saw an entire roadway flanked with society crypts, or community mausoleums. Some were bright and gleaming white, others were friable and dilapidated. Some crypt covers were missing or ajar. Oh well, here I go veering away from Rice’s mausoleum… when it comes to exploring cemeteries, the Occam’s razor philosophical principle does not hold – NEVER take the simplest route in a cemetery! You’ll miss something!

Inside an open crypt in a society tomb

Author Anne Rice's mausoleum

If there are dry-rotted bedclothes, shoes, and pillows inside some of these open crypts, where are the bones? I’ll leave that up to your imagination. If nothing else, all of New Orleans stirs the imagination! Some entrepreneur’s creativity was piqued by the mysterious water-filled canal that runs through the center of the property and behind Anne Rice’s mausoleum. As I was using my phone to check Google maps for the location of her mausoleum, I hit on an ETSY site where someone is selling small bottles of water from this canal! Sort of like water from Lourdes! (Lourdes water is more expensive than water from behind Anne Rice’s final resting place, $7.99 versus $5.60, in case you’re wondering). The Rice mausoleum was rather plain. A few beads on the door, nice stained glass. Elegant. Stately.

Lake Lawn Metairie Cemetery is quite easy to get lost in. Part of it is a giant oval from the original horse race track. According to Michael Murphy’s book, Fear Dat, prior to the Civil War, the property had been a country club with a race track. According to Murphy, the club refused membership to a local newly-rich Yankee, Charles T. Howard. His response? He vowed to one day buy the club and racetrack and turn it into a cemetery. After the war, many of the formerly-wealthy prominent citizens could not keep the club in operation so it was put up for sale. Guess who bought it? And guess what he did with it?

At that point I needed to head out of the cemetery, as I needed to keep an appointment. Also, it was oppressively hot and if I didn't get out of there soon, I thought I'd die. It becomes difficult to appreciate all the architectural and sculptural beauty around you when the sweat is pouring off your face and stinging your eyes! There was a coffee shop a few blocks away near the trolley stop where I could buy a few bottles of water and freshen up. I just needed to get there. Walking out of the cemetery proved to be a daunting task. It was getting hotter and I was feeling fatigued. Tempting though that bottle of Abita beer was at the base of a monument, it was really just taunting me.

I walked under palm trees and by some incredibly sculpted gardens around monuments and mausoleums, more fine art horticulture that you would find in most arboretums and Victorian gardens. Honestly, I never saw a cemetery that oozed this much wealth – old and new money. Beauty and color and life in every direction - there is something unusual and astounding at every turn at the Metairie. Exploring this place is like finding five bucks in every pocket of your cargo pants.

And what better place to spend that cash than the Morning Call Coffee Stand next to where the colorful red trollies converge at the “Cemeteries Transit Terminal.” There are so many cemeteries in this area it is difficult to believe they did not name the place “Mourning Call Coffee Stand.” By the time I got into their air conditioning, I was exhausted. It was probably only 11 a.m. but it was close to a hundred degrees and I had been outside for four hours. I downed two bottles of cold water then went to the bathroom to freshen up. Then I had some beignets and iced coffee.