Arthur Smith is something of a legend in New Orleans for his extraordinary devotion to his family's graves. His grandmother's oven tomb in St. Louis No 1 is always decorated, but the diocese keeps the adornments to a minimum.

His whimsy is given full expression in other areas of the...

I was out the other day, just before the weather started to turn, leaving everything a sullen grey. The skies in New Orleans are so low that much of the time it seems like you can reach out and touch the clouds. I never really paid much attention to...

I hadn't visited VdP before, for a variety of reasons. For one, it sits just off N. Robertson, the main thoroughfare into the Lower 9th Ward, and although there are many lovely areas of their Bywater neighborhood, this cemetery isn't situated in one of them.  It may or may not actually...

Holt is one of those places that tourists just don't get to, even though it's quite close.

It's actually under city, not diocese control, and the city certainly isn't about to start publicizing Holt as a wonderful place to spend an afternoon- even though it really is an amazing place, full...

...why New Orleans' burials are typically above ground, this should clear it up.

I took this photo in McDonoghville Cemetery in Algiers- still in New Orleans, but on the far side of the Mississippi. They have a mix of semi-in ground burials(called copings) and traditional tombs, and this is...

This tomb isn't especially remarkable outside of New Orleans. Holding two coffins at a time, it sits at the back of St. Louis No. 3, unassuming along the main thoroughfare.

Even the strange photographs along the front aren't unique to our area; many of the old families personalized their tombs with...

Founded in 1858, this Jewish cemetery is the first one you come to when riding the streetcar out to the end of Canal Street to the cemeteries, but it's easy to miss. There are no tombs, and most burials are low to the ground and in the more traditional American style-...

Cypress Grove was opened in 1838 specifically for the volunteer firemen and their families. Many surviving family members had their dead disinterred and moved here, once it was in operation. Located at the very end of Canal, this is one of the smaller cemeteries, but still really interesting. The above is...

This week a strange case was decided in the Federal Courts, and here's what the Institute for Justice has to say about it:


Okay, so their rhetoric is a little over the top, it does get the point across. The small Abbey vs. Big Burial.

Louisiana is awash in bizarre regulation....

The inscription is doubly poignant due to the state of the grave, which is slipping away as well:

I've always loved the fact that our cemeteries have actual street names. The signpost in shadow is for East Street, tho the photo is taken facing west, into the dying sunset.

St. Joseph's Cemetery primarily served the German population of Central City, and the Schmuckers were, like most of their neighbors, first generation American when they commissioned their tomb:

Given the amazing state of the ironwork and the remnants of the traditional white paint, we can assume that the Schmuckers...

One of the strangest sights in the New Orleans cemeteries is the shrine dedicated to St. Roch.

St. Roch (also known as Rocco and Roche) was born in France to the barren wife of a provincial governor who had fasted and prayed for a miracle pregnancy. When his father died...

This narrow grave in Hebrew's Rest stands out for many reasons- the shiny marble stone, so unlike anything else in the graveyard, the relative youth of the Mr. Prosterman- but mostly it's the images the galaxy and rockets that catch your eye:

As you might have guessed, he was...

This is one of those cemeteries in the middle of the roughest part of Central City, but for All Saint's Day there were guards at each entrance to protect the priest who was coming to bless the graves and those doing cleanup.

I was struck by the Alberino tomb, which has...