Funerals, Part One

I've only ever been to one "traditional" New Orleans funeral, and that was of my best friend's mother, who died of lung cancer, back in the summer of 2009. She was buried near City Park in Lake Lawn Cemetery and since the funeral I have not been back to the standing grave where she was laid to rest. However, I remember the services very clearly.

Ms. Biffy, as we called her, had been diagnosed with lung cancer the day before Christmas in 2008, and she spent the next six months trying chemo therapy and wearing oxygen masks. However, she passed away in June 2009 and the services were held in New Orleans and Metairie, where she had lived with her husband and two children. The wake was one like I had never before witnessed. It was held at Lake Lawn and there were well over a thousand people there to pay respects to her. It was a beautiful occasion. There were visitors from all over the state (due to the Katrina diaspora) whom I had not seen in years and have not seen since.

The funeral mass--she was a well-to-do Catholic woman with good standing in the church--was held in St. Ann church in Metairie. The church was packed with weeping witnesses. Her husband wrote a eulogy which he was unable to deliver and so had a family friend deliver it instead. It was beautiful.

After the mass, everyone followed the hearse to the interstate and to the cemetery where there was a standing grave labeled "DeBuys." I think the worst part was watching them push the coffin into the tomb.

I mention this funeral because I will be going to another traditional Catholic New Orleans funeral tomorrow for my great-grandmother who passed away around noon last Wednesday. This one, however, I'm expecting to be small, as she was well into her eighties when she left. My grandparents have set up donations to animal hospitals for the funeral, as my great-grandmother was a fond lover of animals, even after she developed Alzheimer's. She was known to collect stray cats and let them wander through her house, and her favorite dogs were Schnauzers, whom she often overfed and didn't bathe. However, she was a wonderful woman with a big heart, and I am sad to see her go.

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Traditional New Orleans graves stand above ground, due to the fact that it floods here quite often. During/after Katrina there were a great many corpses which had been unearthed from their graves because of the excessive flooding.

Traditional NOLA architecture

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New Orleans and Louisiana is architecturally different from any other region in the Untied States because of its early identification as a French colony. This identification brought different influences into what was mostly a British colonized country. But, the most important influence that impacted how French colonists should make their houses was the weather. The Louisiana climate is never too cold, usually too hot, and always too humid.  What did this mean? For many for many colonies this meant High ceilings and large windows.

 

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The housing format was also adapted to better fit the environment. The Anglo style houses of the British colonies did not work well in the humid region, so the French immigrants used shotgun houses, which was common in the French settlement of Haiti.  Shotgun houses are homes that have rooms created one after the other to let the air roll through the house and make a comfortable breeze. This design was originally from West Africa. The rooming situation may not have been very private, but the cool air was worth it.

 
If one looks at the picture above one notices another peculiar aspect that makes the New Orleans area housing unique from most of the other areas in the state. The raised platform. New Orleans is below sea level which makes flooding a huge issue in the area. Raised houses are crucial. Since the aftermath of Katrina, people are raising their houses more than ever before. This is a major architectural change New Orleans is experiencing in the 21st century. The Architectural difference in New Orleans is just one of the many ways the city and state differentiate themselves from the rest of America.

Great Egret

I saw this bird roaming about this afternoon. I think it must have flown across the street from Audubon Park. I tried to get a good picture (obviously didn't as you can tell).  From what I read online it's a Great Egret.  Great Egrets can be found here in Louisiana year round.  They have long black legs and a yellow bill. Egrets feed on fish, frogs and insects and are known to make a "kroow" sound. Here's a link for more about the Great Egret. http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/30/overview/Great_Egret.aspx          All info obtained from link above.

Family Weekend

This weekend was Family Weekend for all Loyola students. My uncle, aunt, and their three boys came down to see me. Guess where it rained all weekend, that's right, New Orleans. Thank you, mother nature.

On a brighter note, I was able to show my family around New Orleans.  It was hard for me to show them only a few landmarks when there is so much to show people in this beautifully cultured city. There's the  French Quarter, the French Market, the old architecture, all of the cemeteries, Audubon Park and Audubon Zoo, the list could go on and on. I decided to show them what I first saw when I came to this city - Bourbon street, Cafe Du Monde, and the French Market.

Now, I had to be careful and make sure that the little ones were shielded from scarry Bourbon street and all the horrors that come with the journey down that lovely street. Wouldn't want them scarred for life... So, I decided to take a picture down the street, just to show them what they were missing. To my surprise, there wasn't as many scantily clad ladies on the street. Thank god...

My cousins loved all of the brightly colored neon signs that were all along Bourbon. The three boys liked the voodoo store that was on Bourbon. All the trinkets looked pretty authentic, opposed to the souvenir stores with the crazy colored 'voodoo dolls' and 'spells'. Unfortunately, I couldn't snap a picture because there was a very important ritual going on. But the boys were able to take a piece of New Orleans back with them to Texas. And I swear when we walked out of that shop, we all had the munchies...

On to Cafe Du Monde. This place is probably the worst place in the world. It's a trap for the senses. If someone told me I could never have anything from this wonderful place I would actually cry. I can't get enough. Neither could the boys, or my uncle and aunt. I bet if we were there for another hour, we could have eaten 5 orders of those delicious beignets and that chicory coffee...Oh god that coffee. I could sing songs about that coffee. No one in my family could drink that completely black though...way too strong for me, way too strong for my uncle. It could probably clear the sinuses and shock you out of a cold. Thank you for milk and sugar. 

The French Market. Best. Place. Ever. Sort of. It has food, beverages, trinkets, odds and ends, do-hickeys, jewelry, doo dads, thing-a-ma-bobs, pretty much anything you could think of. Unfortunately for my family, we just missed the market. We were too busy checking out all of the interesting souvenir shops and locally owned stores that we didn't make it down there in time. Oh well. guess that means they will have to come another time.

Hopefully they will come back. There's still so much to see. 

Tuxedo Brass Band

On Friday, the Tuxedo Brass Band performed at Loyola University and it was probably the coolest thing I have seen so far. I had always wanted to see a traditional brass band play here in NOLA and I was hoping to just stumble upon a wedding or something but the fact that they performed at my school was great!

First, they talked about how they had been around for a long time (since the 1910's I think) and musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Mutt Carey have been in it. Now, they call themselves the Young Tuxedo Brass Band as a spin-off of the original brass band.One thing that interested me was how they perform at  funerals. The leader of the band said there's 3 stages in funerals: 1) the march song that lets everyone at the funeral know the band arrived 2) the dirge and 3) an uplifting song after the person is dropped in the ground. The video is of an example of an dirge song that is normally played called "What a Friend We Have in Jesus". Enjoy!

I really enjoyed this band because I've been obsessed with old brass band music since I started playing jazz and hearing them play was amazing. I think it's definitely something to be on the look out for in NOLA.