Hundreds Mourn Joe Cain (Mardi Gras

Covered from head to toe in funeral black and huddled in a corner against the Church Street Graveyard gates, Marilyn Harris and Abigail Reeves waited for the Merry Widows.

They were the first to arrive, around 8:30 a.m. Sunday, three hours before 20 anonymous women would slink into the cemetery to grieve.

Reeves had invited Harris, her friend of 50 years who lives in Houston, to experience Mobile's homage to Joe Cain.

"We're gonna have fun today," Reeves said. "And out of respect for Joe, we're gonna wear our black hats."

For a while, they were alone in the brisk morning cold, bundled in black trench coats and peering through the gates at Cain's grave.

Much of the rest of the crowd stumbled in a couple hours later, around 10:30, as the sun warmed the air.

Karen Saldivar, of Semmes, wore a black tux coat, encrusted with silver beads on the front and a Joe Cain tribute airbrushed on the back.

"Baby, I dress for any occasion, 365," she quipped when asked about her apparel.

Saldivar mingled with the crowd, had her picture taken with fellow revelers, and used her purple-gloved hands to tip a Bloody Mary to her lips.

"This is to start the day off," she said of the drink. Mardi Gras, particularly Joe Cain Day, she continued "is all about the friends. It's togetherness."

And then at 11:25 a.m., lead by a four-motorcycle police escort, the widows rolled up in a Gulf Coast Tour bus. The women stepped off the bus and children, women and grown men alike flailed their arms and cheered, in attempts to lure throws.

"Georgia, you were his favorite," someone shouted, as the widow shuffled across the pavement and through the cemetery entrance.

As they arrived at Cain's horizontal marble gravestone, each of the widows sobbed emphatically. Their faces shielded by dark veils, their arms wrapped in beads and black and silver garters, one by one, the widows lay white lillies across the stone.

But in a matter of minutes, the mourning was done. Announcing this as their 34th year of lament, the women, along with the crowd behind the gate, celebrated Cain's legendary revival of Mardi Gras in Mobile after the Civil War.

A tux-clad musician accompanying the group played "When the Saints Go Marching In" on a straight soprano sax.

The crowd jostled for views of the widows, restricted somewhat by construction in the parking lot at the Mobile Public Library nearby.

The widows were not stingy. Black beads, silver beads with black medallions, plastic black roses and black and silver garters flew from their gloved hands as they danced in the yard.

"The widows were in great form, but the construction limited your ability to see the total picture," said Devlin Wilson, a Mobile artist and Joe Cain Day veteran, walking away a few minutes later.

Harris, the first-time visitor, scooted through the crowd, hopped into her friend's Scion xB and, before the rest of the crowd could scatter, rode away from the cemetery.

A Brief Story Of Joe Cain

The civil war had halted all revelry. Joseph Stillwell Cain was a store clerk in Mobile, Alabama in 1865, who had noticed how much the war had mentally worn down the populace. He, like most of his fellow Mobilians, were still under Union occupation, but the mental war between the ex-confederate soldiers and union authorities still raged and was taking a toll. During the occupation several edicts had come down from Union leaders in an effort to totally break the the will of the the Mobilians. To make matters worse, finding themselves "men without a country" following the end of the Civil War, members of any branch of the Confederate forces were forced to sign "Amnesty oaths", to restore their citizenship rights.

After all, these were the people and soldiers that kept Union forces at bay, even after the battle and fall of Mobile Bay to the Union Navy in 1864. During the "bread riot of 1863, and the Union blockade which substantially reduced the trade in Mobile for the duration of the war, its people endured. Disruption of foreign trade persisted after the war, as Union occupying forces, which took the city of Mobile in April 1865, closed the port to foreign trade until late in August 1865.

Joe Cain knew however, that to openly voice any opposition to the occupation of Mobile by the Union troops would be viewed technically, as treason. The mental drain, however, had to be stopped, and the spirit and pride of the Mobilians has to be restored.

It was against this back drop that Cain, in 1866, decided the best way to accomplish this renaissance of the spirit, was to revitalize the Kraft parade, the celebration of Mardi Gras in Mobile, which had been halted during the conflict. One night, he led a group of revelers in a parade through the city, using a "borrowed" coal wagon and dressed in improvised costumes depicting a Chickasaw Indian chief from the local Wragg Swamp, he called himself Chief Slacabamorinico. The significance of choosing this character was a backhanded insult to the Union forces as the Chickasaw, had never surrendered during the civil war. He mocked the union military that controlled Mobile at the time.

This celebration gave the Mobilians a much needed boost, when the Union leadership learning of the, "one horse stunt" were furious at the man, but couldn't touch him because he had voiced no opposition.

In 1867, Cain reappeared, this time with a group of confederate soldiers, who were also musicians, calling themselves the Lost Cause Minstrels (and they paraded until 1879).

The parade continued to give Mobile back it's spirit and pride and allowed the city to hold its collective head up, and continue to progress and to some degree, move on.

Joe Cain is currently buried at Church Street Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.

The Joe Cain Procession was started in 1967 by a local folk singer, historian, writer named Julian Rayford. He wanted to bring recognition to the man who revived Mardi Gras activities in Mobile. Julian Rayford dressed as Chief Slacabamorinico in his coal wagon. Cain's Merry Widows follow, a mysterious group of women in black, throwing black roses and Mardi Gras beads. The number of participating groups has grown over the years, now at 32 (a limit set by the Mobile Police Dept.). Julian Rayford also petitioned for Joe Caine and his wife's body to be moved from Bayou La Batre to the Church Street Graveyard in downtown Mobile, which has been closed to new burials since 1898. Julian Rayford died in 1980, and his body was buried right next to Joe Cain's. After the Joe Cain Procession, Cain's Merry Widows partake in a Mardi Gras funeral at the grave site of Joe Cain. Weeping, dancing and tossing beads in memory of Joe Cain.

"Mardi Gras first came to New Orleans through French Culture in the year 1699 when the French explorers celebrated the holiday on the Mississippi River."

Mobile, Alabama Mardi Gras History - Timeline

1699 ------ Pierre Le Moyne', declares his camp "Pointe du Mardi Gras", (Mardi Gras Point), as Alabama's first European settler's entered the Mississippi/Alabama/Louisiana Delta Gulf Coast Region. A Stone Marker sits on this encampment and marks this ponit at the end of U.S. 1 Highway in Louisiana. This is considered the first celebration of Mardi Gras in the U.S.

1700 ----- Talks breakdown between the native Indians and the colony of Mobile. War is declared by both sides. Several small skirmishes ensue with no clear winner. French Troops are brought in to put down the Indian uprising. It would take 8 years. The french colonists, writing about their longing for home, now begin to celebrate Mardi Gras with feasting and group singing.

1702 ---- In January 6, 1702, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville established a French fort and settlement called Mobile, at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff which served as the capital of the French colony of Louisiane for almost a decade, until its abandonment in 1711.

1704 ----- Mobile is formally made the capital of the french province of the Louisianne Territories. Masque De La Mobile celebrated until 1709. Societé de Saint Louise was founded by French soldiers at Fort Louis de la Mobile. Mardi Gras begins to become the holiday for french colonists to remember their homeland roots! This is now widely considered by all scholars to be the very first organized celebration of Mardi Gras in a city, of the New World.

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