Book Review: New Orleans Cemeteries

Images of America: New Orleans Cemeteries

Eric Brock

Arcadia Publishing

128 pages

For those of you who read my last Sunday Salon post, I recently compiled a list of books for my trip to New Orleans in May.  I sent the list to everyone going on the trip with me, so thatt people can choose books to get them in the mood for the trip.  I recently started this tradition, and so far it has been a lot of fun (I’m going to Florence in March with my mom and sisters, so that trip got a list too).  So anyway, I came across some books on NOLA cemeteries during my perusal while compiling my list, and the morbid part of me was instantly interested.  I checked my library, and this was the first book I could find that dealt with cemeteries in NOLA.

New Orleans Cemeteries is basically a picture book of some of the most well known cemeteries in the area.  Most people believe that the above ground crypts and tombs are a result of New Orleans being below sea level.  While that theory makes a lot of sense, Brock explained that the real reason for this burial style is the fact that most Latin burials were above ground, and the citizens of New Orleans adopted that method.  In fact, there are a lot of below ground graves in NOLA–there are quite a few Jewish cemeteries in the area, where the burials are all underground, since Jews believe that graves must be underground. 

The nice thing about this book is that it had a lot of fascinating captions with the pictures.  It was interesting to read about the history of New Orleans and its most prominent citizens.  I now have an interest in Victorian-era graveyards and I hope to read about some other cemeteries not based in New Orleans.

And now, I leave you with pictures.

I borrowed this book from my local library.