Yesterday dawned clear and relatively cool for New Orleans. There was a light breeze blowing, enough to keep most of the mosquitoes at bay in the cemetery. The mower man, the fellows who were to do the power washing and repainting of the tombs and the priest I'd invited to bless the cemetery at a rededication all were unable to participate due to funerals that required their presence. How ironic! The host of the "
Dobards Only" Facebook group. Ahmad Dobard, brought his string trimmer, and Lloyd and I brought our neighbor Byron along.
Byron, it turns out, was a friend of Vin "Cuddy" Jackson, the only burial in the cemetery that we've not been able to confirm is somehow related to the Dobard family. Small world.
The four of us pitched in and made a difference. We trimmed, pulled weeds. picked up trash and hauled it away. Lloyd and I were there earlier in the week to install some white crosses on the unmarked graves; we marked the location of the formerly "lost" graves as well.
The mowing and tomb cleaning will be taking place in the next few days. I'll post new photos of the cemetery when that work is completed.
(Click on the photos to enlarge.)
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| Ahmad Dobard. The new copings can be seen in the background. The sinking old copings can also be seen. |
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| The four graves behind the back row of tombs. |
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| Lloyd is preparing to do a rubbing on a headstone that we thought might have some usable information leading to the identification of the grave's inhabitant. It did not. |
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| Weeds and grass had overgrown several graves. |
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| Here you can see the results of the weeding in the foreground graves. (Side note: you can see the two definitions of "weeding" in play here. Byron, on the left, was of the rip-off-the tops school; Kathie, on the right, dug out the weeds by the roots. The grave on the left and the two behind it are in for a dose of Round-Up in the near future. Digging out the weeds by the roots was too much to accomplish in one morning. The two crosses bear the names of Charles and Clarence Bailey, two of the four burials we were able to name. |
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| The orange markings delineating the area of the grave can be seen on Wilkie Salvant's grave, right front. The ground penetrating radar located the gravesite. Wilkie's son Michael, who we met at the cemetery one day, told us it is where his father is buried.. |
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| Here is another view of Wilkie Salvant's grave, with another, as yet unidentified grave behind it. I'm going to have to come back on a cloudy day to get better photos. The bright sun and shade made photography difficult. |
These are the new granite markers for the formerly "lost" graves. They came all the way from California. We are pleased with how they turned out. At present they are lying flat on the new cement coping. Next month the cement man, Keith Espadron, will raise them up at an angle, so they will be easier to read, and mount them permanently.
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| We discovered Blanche's birth date after the stone was made. She was 18 years old when she died. |
