On Monday the 10th I visited Odd Fellows Rest. It was still closed off, overgrown, and beautiful as ever, still slowly and gradually growing in disrepair. Part of the gate’s symbolic figures that had been there last May had been broken off. I was glad I had documentation of those in their previous existence.
A section of the fence here leading to Odd Fellows Rest was easily accessible from the cemetery next door. It would have been easy to climb to the other side…
Odd Fellows Rest sits isolated and surrounded by a dense brick wall in the midst of the surrounding cemeteries.
I met with an anthropologist at the University of New Orleans before I visited the cemeteries on Canal Street. Dr. Gray’s main project is the Holt cemetery, and he also conducts a field school every summer in Storyville. Part of his work in Storyville is to take the bones from the graves here and transport them to another cemetery. I was moved by his passion for his work, and even more so when he mentioned that a ceremony was planned for these bones as they moved from their first final resting place to their second. He also spoke of the fact that not all graveyards in New Orleans are above-ground, for example, the Storyville graveyard and the Charity Hospital Cemetery.
The Charity Hospital Cemetery is now a memorial for the unclaimed victims of Hurricane Katrina. I was curious about this as I finished up reading the book Nine Lives (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nine-lives-dan-baum/1013475320?ean=9780385523202) and Frank Minyard was spoke of in the book as wanting to have a memorial here. Sure enough, his name was on one of the mirror-like marble slabs.
Although easy to explain with the bright sun and shadows cast that day, this photo has an eerie quality to it. To me, this photo is symbolic of the unclaimed victims of Katrina, of Odd Fellows Rest, of these forgotten individuals and places that are saturated with stories and secrets that sit, quietly, waiting to speak.