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.

St. Roch's Cemetery and Chapel, New Orleans

Figure 1. Saint Roch Campo Santo, New Orleans

It is with great pleasure that I present a guest blog post by my friend Nancy Jaynes (IG @New_Orleans_Cemeteries). As I wrote in my recent post on New Orleans cemeteries ("New Orleans' Cast-Iron Tombs"), I was not able to get into the chapel at St. Roch's - but Nancy did, a few weeks after my visit. It's only open for one hour each month, so timing is everything! I invited her to write a piece about St. Roch's for The Cemetery Traveler and she was gracious enough to do so. I hope you enjoy her wonderful writing and unique photos!

                               +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mark Twain first coined the phrase “Cities of the Dead” to refer to the cemeteries of New Orleans, and the nickname stuck. People sometimes refer to cemeteries in general as “boneyards.”  In New Orleans, Cypress Grove Cemetery is known as “the fireman’s cemetery” because it was founded by the Firemen's Charitable and Benevolent Association as a burial place for volunteer firemen and their families. These are all nicknames. But Saint Roch Cemetery, also in New Orleans, has an actual alias. 

Figure 7. Ex-voto offerings in the chapel

Its official name is Saint Roch Campo Santo, which is how the cemetery gate reads (Figure 1), but on the Findagrave website, it’s listed as Saint Roch Cemetery. Actually, there are two Findagrave listings– Saint Roch Cemetery Number 1 and Saint Roch Cemetery Number 2. According to the New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries website, “The name Campo Santo was given to the cemetery as a nod to the Campo Santo dei Tedeschi, a cemetery, church, and hospice for Germans located on the south side of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Though different in design, St. Roch Cemetery No. 1 and Campo Santo dei Tedeschi each contain the 14 Stations of the Cross.” Since the Catholic church congregation that founded the cemetery was largely made up of German immigrants to New Orleans, this allusion to Campo Santo dei Tedeschi was appropriate. 

Figure 3. In the chapel of Saint Roch Cemetery Number 1

New Orleans is full of numbered cemeteries, and a few of those of the same name but with different numbers are located in different neighborhoods. However, many of the numbered cemeteries simply reflect expansions into adjacent city blocks. That’s the case with next-door neighbors, Saint Roch Number 1 and Saint Roch Number 2. Number 1 was founded in 1874, and Number 2 was an expansion that opened around 1879. 

Similar to the cemetery itself, the Catholic saint called Saint Roch is known by different monikers, though his birth name is unknown. Of course, different languages refer to him in different ways. Saint Roch comes from the French, but in American English is pronounced like “Saint Rock.” There’s also São Roque (Portuguese), San Roque (Spanish), Sant Roc (Catalan), San Rocco (Italian), Sveti Rok (Slovenian), Sveti Roko (Croatian), and in Glasgow, Scotland, he might be referred to as St. Rollox. 

Figure 2. Chapel in St. Roch Cemetery

Saint Roch Campo Santo in New Orleans serves as the National Shrine of Saint Roch, and the story of Saint Roch is interesting, as tales of Catholic saints often are. Legend says that he was born to a noble family in Montpelier, France, at the end of the 13th century or the early 14th century. It’s said that when he was a young man, he gave away his riches to the poor following the death of his wealthy parents. Some stories say that Saint Roch joined the Franciscan order. (Clearly, his story reflects a connection to Saint Francis of Assisi.) There are many versions of the Saint Roch story, but all say that Saint Roch set out on a pilgrimage to Rome and that as he traveled through Italy, he healed the sick and performed several healing miracles. Ironically, Saint Roch fell ill while ministering to the plague-stricken villagers, which led to his expulsion from the town. (One might wonder why the plague-ridden villagers themselves hadn’t been expelled.) Thus, Saint Roch took refuge in a nearby forest.

Ex-voto offerings in St. Roch's chapel

The story goes on to say that as Saint Roch lay languishing in the forest on the verge of death, a dog found him. Some stories say that the dog brought bread every day until Saint Roch recovered. Others state that the dog fetched his owner, who then cared for St. Roch and oversaw his recovery. All the versions that I’ve read say that St. Roch then returned to France, where he was taken for a spy in disguise as a pilgrim and was jailed for several years, dying there in prison. Some versions of his story say that an angel visited him and declared that anyone who called out to St. Roch would be spared from pestilence. In addition to his name being known as a defense against epidemics and disease, he is also a patron of pilgrims, surgeons, invalids, pharmacists, those falsely accused, dogs, and bachelors. The feast day of Saint Roch is observed on the traditional day of his death, August 16th.

In New Orleans, Saint Roch Cemetery/Campo Santo was founded by the Reverend Peter Leonard Thevis (1837-1893), the pastor of Holy Trinity Church in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. A yellow fever outbreak hit the city in 1867, and Thevis urged the congregation to pray to Saint Roch, the patron saint of the ill. Over the years, Yellow Fever outbreaks claimed about 10% of the population of the city of New Orleans, so this disease posed a real threat. According to the story, Reverend Thevis had made a promise that if Saint Roch came through for his congregation, he would build a chapel to express his gratitude and honor the saint. Since not one of his flock died from this outbreak, Thevis followed through with his promise, and the chapel (Figures 2-3) is located in Saint Roch Cemetery Number 1, in a neighborhood now called Faubourg St. Roch, adjacent to Marigny. (Old New Orleans neighborhoods are called faubourgs, the French word referring to a suburb.)

Figure 4. St. Roch with dog and leg sore

Saint Roch is usually portrayed lifting his tunic or with a torn tunic, exposing a plague lesion on his leg. He is almost always pictured with a dog. The statue next to the altar in the New Orleans chapel shows Saint Roch and the dog, with bread in its mouth; look carefully, and you might see Saint Roch’s leg sore. (Figure 4). Reverend Thevis is buried under the marble floor of the chapel (Figure 5), and there is also a bas-relief depiction of him on the wall (figure 6). In 2018, the chapel was closed and renovated over the course of several years and was completed in May of 2022; since then, the chapel is open to the public only for a few hours in the middle of the day when a mass is held on the first Friday of each month. 

Figure 5. Reverend Thevis burial marker

Figure 8: Ex-voto offerings in the chapel

The small room adjacent to the main chapel has been left in its state of charming shabbiness, with an abundance of ex-voto offerings (Figures 7-8). These are offerings in recognition of answered prayers or anticipated results. Leg braces and crutches are hanging on and leaning against the walls, along with many anatomical casts and replicas. There are also hearts, tiles expressing thanks, and various other tokens and mementoes. These are left by believers to express a promise of faithfulness, devotion, and thanks for the intercession of Saint Roch. The Saint Roch chapel ex-voto offerings have accumulated over the course of decades, but as mentioned above, except for a few hours once a month, the chapel has been closed to the public since 2022, so it seems inevitable that these ex-voto offerings will soon become antiquities, artifacts of past religious practices in New Orleans. I find it sad that this folkway has been forced to come to an end.

Figure 6. Bas-relief of Reverend Peter Leonard Thevis

Sources:

https://mavcor.yale.edu/conversations/object-narratives/ex-votos-shrine-st-roch-new-orleans

https://nolacatholiccemeteries.org/st-roch-cemetery-1

https://www.saveourcemeteries.org/cemeteries/cemeteries/st-roch-nos-1-2.html

https://reliquarian.com/2020/04/04/saint-roch-the-saint-par-excellence-against-disease/

https://www.gostroch.com/storyofstroch

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13100c.htm

https://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/05/07/st_roch_chapel_in_new_orleans_is_filled_with_prosthetic_legs_false_teeth.html

What's Buried in that Graveyard?

I mean, besides the obvious stuff. I was rather shocked to find out from a cemetery grounds keeper friend of mine some of the things that he and his workers find on the grounds. Now, I’m not talking about some abandoned graveyard out in the woods, but rather a nice well-kept, city cemetery. The cemetery in question is large enough that visitors can easily drive a little way and be out of sight of the people in the office.

When you or I walk through the occasional cemetery, we’re not inclined to notice something that was not there yesterday – a small mound of dirt, an item sticking out of the ground. But people whose job it is to care for the monuments, the stones, and the grounds DO notice such things. And they’ll typically remove them.

Voodoo doll, Atlantic City Cemetery

The typical voodoo dolls are found, to be sure, along with the dead chickens. I’ve seen these too, but there are creepier things. One time my friend saw something sticking up a bit out of the ground near a grave. Upon investigation, he pulled out a three by ten-inch parcel wrapped in a scarf. He was curious, so he unwrapped it. Inside were two face-to-face Barbie-type dolls, naked, with coins and pieces of broken mirror between them.  One had a pin stuck in her.   

Another time, he found a plastic shopping bag full of dead headless chickens – in full feather − with a note tied on saying “Neptune.” He assumed this was done by one of these whackos whose job it is to warn us about space aliens – until he read in the newspaper the following week about Yvon Neptune, Haiti’s imprisoned Prime Minister. Probably had to do with that governments’ (2004) crackdown on voodoo priestesses (I’m not making this up!).

Snake Handle, compliments of Angela Dellutri Photography

Then of course there was the jar of dead snakes he found, swishing around in some liquid, the large jar just sitting on a headstone. All of this stuff, obviously related to voodoo spells, curses and conjures. According to PlanetVoodoo.com, "Snakes are a common subject in the realm of hoodoo and folk magic. Their uses range the gamut from good luck to retribution, and the omens assigned to them as equally as varied." Now keep in mind, this was not in New Orleans, it was in Philadelphia. Whatever the locale, a graveyard is a popular place for voodoo practitioners to enlist the aid of spirits (of the dead) to help with spells. (Check out this video posted by one intrepid cemetery explorer, and see what he found in a cemetery in New York City!)

Even more disturbing than finding snakes in a jar must  have been when the cemetery groundskeeper at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California found the human hearts in a jar in 2010. (You can read about that in more detail in one of my previous blogs, "Human Hearts Found in Jars in Cemetery.")

"Police opened up one jar and found a human heart with the photo of a young man and woman pinned to it. Nearby was a second jar with the same contents, but bearing a photo of a different young man and woman. Officers also found partially burned cigars and candles…"

-The Oakland Tribune, 10/22/2010

Though I’ve never personally found snakes or hearts in jars, I started thinking about the weird stuff I have come across in fifteen years of cemetery travel, and wondered what other people had found. So I began a Facebook Group called “Unusual Cemetery Objects,” and encouraged people to post their findings. I was kind of hoping to tap into the experience of the cemetery groundskeeper, but so far, they are a shy bunch. I assume this is partly because cemetery managers would rather not make it known to the general public that jars of snakes had been found buried on the grounds. Still I encourage those people to add such findings to the comments at the end of this blog – if you’d rather maintain anonymity, email me and I will add your comments.

So this blog’s title phrase “buried in a graveyard” can also refer to found objects only figuratively buried, i.e. hidden from the public eye. When I asked people about the “Unusual Cemetery Objects,” they’d found, I did get some unexpected responses. While people certainly photograph odd-looking monuments and casket vaults, they typically don’t photograph the surprising things they come upon, like homeless people or nude model shoots (both of which are fairly common).

Here is a list of a few things people posted on my Facebook Group page, “Unusual Cemetery Objects:”

•          stack of blankets and a comforter in a bricked in plot (homeless people apparently camped there)
•          bullet holes in ceramic death portraits
•          helium balloons tied to headstones in Scotland
•         a dead body … came across police investigating the body of a dead prostitute
•          a music video shoot with model and fog machine  [popular with the Goth set – ed.]
•         a casket key         skeleton gloves in a trash can
•         a headstone where a local serial killer scratched his name on the back
•         grass that won’t grow on a plot
•          the top of a skull in a pit in Pere Lachaise
•         goat’s head
•          Someone ELSE putting flowers on YOUR loved one’s grave!

That last one might just be the most unnerving! Which goes to show that there’s a world of life in cemeteries that we don’t normally see.

Headstones appear inside fallen tree!

When I read one person’s comment about the skull at Pere Lachaise, I was reminded of the human teeth I found in the Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans. I scooped up a handful of the gravelly walkway material because I thought it looked like broken up seashells, which it was, mostly, but there were also a half dozen teeth in my hand! (Once you learn about the above-ground burial techniques common in the area, you realize this is not unusual. But still ….)

Stuffed lynx (or perhaps an ocelot?) with garden furniture inside mausoleum!

Dead fox, Mt. Moriah Cemetery, Phila.

I’ve seen animals in cemeteries, live and dead. And bones. Bones are a strange thing to find in a graveyard, which is kind of funny and ironic when you think about it. I once found a pile of animal bones in the shape of the skeletons of the animals, probably wild dogs. They laid there along with three skulls of roughly the same size. They either fought each other to the death or this was the ancient wild pit bull burial ground.

Who knows what evil lurks?

One of the oddest things I ever saw in a graveyard was a freshly-dug, two-foot-square cement-filled hole, with a dog's footprints in the cement! This was among other graves in an abandoned cemetery. Kind of reminded me of an old, hand-painted plywood sign that used to be on the fence at Evergreen Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey, which said, "No unauthorized burials permitted."

But really, what’s the worst possible thing you can find in a graveyard? Yeah, the hearts in a jar was pretty gruesome, but compared to the horrible things living people do to each other, it’s nothing.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Angela Dellutri for the use of her Snake Door Handle photograph.

Johnny Thunders Dead in New Orleans

Back in 1999, I was speaking at a medical conference in New Orleans, and I hit a few cemeteries to photograph while there. In addition, one of my stops was the "St. Peter Guest House," destination death spot of one of my guitar heroes, Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls.


Back in 1977, after the Dolls crashed and burned, Thunders left the band to eke out a living as a solo artist as well as fronting various other bands. Toward the end of his life, he took up permanent residence at the St. Peter Guest House on St. Peter Street, near the French Quarter of New Orleans. In 1991, he was found dead of a heroin overdose in his room. Rock and Roll lost a minor deity that day.

So anyway, I was walking to the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 to see Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau's tomb, and decided to stop in the Guest House, just because I could. I walked into the tiny lobby and was face to face with a woman at a desk. I explained that I didn't really want anything, that I was just a New York Dolls fan and...she cut me off and said, "Oh, that Johnny Thunders." I nodded and she said, "Wait here, I'll go get Royce. He found the body."

Imagine my surprise...I said thanks, and waited tentatively a few minutes until Royce, the maintenance man, came in. He was about 60, tall and lanky, and just started talking to me about Johnny. He said rock and roll fans check into his room all the time. Royce explained to me that he felt it was murder, not suicide, because when he went in and found the body, all Johnny's guitars and clothes were gone. He felt that one or more of his "friends" (not meaning members of the Dolls) most likely shot him up with a lethal dose and made off with his belongings. Truly, the man was "Born to Lose," as he sang in one of his best solo pieces. (You can hear this on Thunders' best of album "Born to Loose: B.O..")

Royce found Johnny on the floor next to his bed with the bedsheets crunched in a deathgrip by his stiff hands. By his solemn tone, I could tell he was affected by this experience, and was quite mistrutful of the media's and law enforcement's handling of the incident. Warm and friendly, Royce invited me to stay at his home in the French Quarter next time I came to town. Unfortunately I've never been back, but my next trip happened to be to NYC, where Manhattan's Hard Rock Cafe had one of Johnny's Les Paul Jr.s hanging on the wall. Strumming the strings as I walked by made me think of his song, "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory," a song the Dolls would sing in homage to him after the band regrouped in 2004.

For a good read on the Dolls and demise of Johnny Thunders, check out Nina Antonia's book, "The New York Dolls: Too Much Too Soon (Omnibus Press)."

Tomb of the Voodoo Queen

Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, died in 1881. Her remains lie in its St. Louis Cemetery No.1, close to downtown. Supernatural things aside, New Orleans has one of the most dangerous collection of cemeteries in the world. Take a look at this video of Laveau's tomb, and you'll see why. Note how the smallish tombs seem to make up a small city of buildings? These tombs are about 7 feet high, and very close together, allowing for narrow walkways for theives to hide. 

You can easily get lost in one of New Orleans' many cemeteries, get robbed, and left for dead. No wonder tours are recommended as opposed to strolling about alone--as I was doing one day. Its creepy enough in St. Louis Cemetery #1 in broad daylight (wouldn't catch me in there at night!), but when I found Laveau's tomb, I was surprised to see the burnt candles and Mardi Gras beads strewn about and hanging off the roof. Obviously the faithful come here to pray (but for what...?). I grabbed a ring of beads as a souvenir for my daughter and took some pictures.

When it comes to spooks, I've always felt that the more you believe in them, the more they'll try to get you. Therefore, I don't give them the chance. (For instance, I once had a brother-in-law who experienced sleep paralysis, more commonly believed to be caused by a nightmarish demon sitting on your chest . Me? I simply refuse to believe in such things so they won't happen to me. I choose to not make myself susceptible.

Marie Laveau's grave

Imagine my surprise, then, as I heard a rustling behind the Voodoo Queen's tomb. No other people about, as far as I knew. I walked along in front of the tomb to see if something (or someone) was between it and the next tomb. A the same moment I realized I had forgotten which direction the exit was, I saw the weeds between the tombs moving toward me! Before I had time to react, an emaciated feral cat appeared out of the weeds, bared its fangs and began hissing at me!

I thought it best at that point to discreetly drop the Mardi Gras beads and back away. It was then that I saw the litter of emaciated kittens behind the protective mother. She was simply warding off an intruder. Very effective technique.

As I made my way out of the graveyard, I came upon a hose spigot attached to a pipe coming out of the ground. Must be for maintenance workers. Since it was hotter than hell (pun intended) that day and I was totally parched, I stuck my mouth on the spigot, opened the valve, and got a mouthful of salt water!


For more information on Marie Laveau: http://www.travelnola.com/halloweenneworleans/marielaveautomb/

For more information on nightmare demons:
http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/articleview.asp?Post=78