Posted on 05/29/2018 11:36:41 AM PDT by BBell
Six days a week for the past four decades, 67-year-old Daniel Jackson has shown up to work at New Orleans cemeteries. He's seen lightning strike stone angels and hurricanes topple tombstones. He's buried toddlers, Katrina victims, convicted killers and his own siblings. And on a recent spring day, he lounges in a plastic chair wedged in the shade of Carrollton Cemetery and describes his longtime profession as "quiet and peaceful."
Jackson's former boss, Henry Nelson, who hung up his own shovel years ago, sits with his legs crossed next to him and stares out at a labyrinth of weathered tombstones. He is as quiet as the surrounding sepulchers, but when asked his age, he announces with a slow cackle that he's not a day past eighteen.
Jackson learned much of his grave-digging craft from Nelson, who eventually surrenders his actual age -- 81. The two have spent many hot New Orleans days in the city's cemeteries, watching over the long deceased and preparing graves for the newly passed.
"He was a great gravedigger," Jackson declares about his former boss. When probed to explain what exactly constitutes a "great gravedigger," Jackson lists three categories: size, depth and decency. Checking each of those boxes is especially hard in the city-owned graveyards where attendants must dig manually.
Depending on the temperature and precipitation, hand-digging a grave can take anywhere from an hour to two and a half hours. To meet city standards, each grave must be three feet and five inches deep, but Nelson taught Jackson to dig closer to four feet "just to be on the safe side." And it needs to be wide enough--two to three feet-- to fit a coffin. An ill-fitting grave can really disturb the sanctity of a funeral service.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
"I've worked with the living, the dying and the dead," he says. "I don't believe in that spooky talk. I believe your body goes back to dirt and your soul goes back to God. Ain't nothing scary about that. Some people have wild ideas, but I don't. Not one bit."
I like this guys way of seeing things.
I bet hand digging graves keeps the man in pretty good shape. Must have killer abs.
At least he know where he’ll be planted.
In New Orleans, how many has he had to RE-bury?
When my Mother passed a High School friend that I had not spoken to for many years called me to let me know that he was going to be the guy ... he assured me that it was going to be perfect in every way and that he was going to personally plant a Lavender Tree (her favorite) behind her Head Stone.
(Mom had a great sense of humor, she told him she wanted to smell good even in the ground)
“In New Orleans, how many has he had to RE-bury?”
You can’t really bring people back to life with voodoo.
“You can’t really bring people back to life with voodoo.”
Nice, but not my reference.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/louisiana-flooding-caskets-calcasieu-parish/
(Bodies float away in La.)
A nice find.
Thank you.
Most people think of grave diggers as a little off and not very bright. I liked this guy and his simplistic yet insightful view of life.
A friends father was a gravedigger and a sharp old man.
He left Ireland in early 1950s, his connection in America was a large local Catholic Church.
The priest set him up with a job; gravedigger.
Two years later a young lady from a village not far from the gravediggers Irish home also made the journey, her cousin worked in the office of the same Church ...
They had five kids, I worked with three of them; all go-getters.
Their father moved up to become the manager of the cemetery. One brother owns a successful local business.
The apples do not fall far from the tree.
Yeah, I live down this way. It was a joke. I knew what you meant.
I thought most graves in NO were above ground crypts or mausoleums due to the high water table. I’m surprised the coffins don’t float up and out with the first heavy rain, you’d just about need a sump pump in the best of conditions.
Small town in ne Ohio I grew up in had a cemetery on a hill. Once upon a time it was on the outskirts of town.
Had a buddy who worked there in the summer.
Over the years, the remains worked their way down the hill under ground. Headstones stayed put. During heavy rains, the remains (bones) would rise to the surface at the foot of the hill.
No way to know which guest they belonged to.
Especially sounds nasty, since I’d heard years ago that this was a/the cause of the Brontë sisters’ early demise.
“Babbage’s investigation confirmed that the graveyard, situated on the hill at the top of the town and in front of the Brontës’ home, was so overcrowded and poorly oxygenated that decomposing, putrid matter filtered into the water supply.”
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/sanitary-report-on-haworth-home-to-the-bronts
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