They are places for remembering, for tears, for quiet conversations.
They can be beautifully manicured parks and the location of Memorial Day ceremonies.
They can also be crumbling concrete jungles and the subject of spooky stories or the location of midnight dares.
These are Louisiana’s cemeteries and there are 31 in Lafayette Parish.
We look at some today, Memorial Day, a day of remembrance, through the eyes of people with special insight.
Death and burial aren’t regularly at the forethought of most people’s minds.
Some will regularly visit and tend to the grave of a loved one, but what happens to a person’s resting place after the family has moved or died?
“Years back, people used to come with paint and tools and cut the grass and have picnics for All Souls’ Day,” said Deacon Wade Broussard, who serves on The Diocese of Lafayette Cemetery Board. “The whole family would come together. The younger generations say, ‘It ain’t my problem.’ That’s why you’re seeing the older cemeteries with tombs falling apart.”
Broussard manages two Catholic church cemeteries in the area and has done so for decades.
In some parts of the state, the presiding diocese manages all area Catholic cemeteries. In the Diocese of Lafayette, however, each of the cemeteries is managed by an individual church parish.
“I try to work with some of these other church parishes to give them advice and help them along,” Broussard said. “The theme we use is ‘Leave it better than you took it.’ And a lot of priests are coming along and are taking an interest, and once people see the church is taking an interest, then they come forward.”
With the exception of family burial grounds, state law requires that all cemeteries be incorporated.
The Louisiana Cemetery Board governs cemeteries, but it is up to each individual cemetery to care for the grounds and burial sites, whether the cemetery is affiliated with a church or not.
“The cemetery is responsible if they are selling cemetery spaces to the public with a representation of perpetual or endowed care,” said Lucy McCann, director of the Louisiana Cemetery Board.
State law requires that all modern cemeteries are perpetual care or endowed care, meaning that a percentage of the money received from every burial goes into a trust fund to ensure that grounds maintenance can continue after a cemetery has reached capacity.
Ideally, every person’s resting place will be kept presentable, even when there are no longer family members around to care for the grave site.
“The family’s responsibilities are largely nonexistent in most cases,” McCann said. “However, in non-perpetual care cemeteries and abandoned cemeteries, the responsibilities of maintaining a family grave space may fall to the families in the absence of others.”
Those who manage and maintain cemetery grounds know that perpetual funds do not always cover the long-term cost of upkeep, however.
“The scenario is that when there’s nobody left hundreds of years after everything is sold, there’s still going to be money to pay for the upkeep,” said Cecile Walters Hebert, office manager for Greenlawn Memorial Gardens.
What the perpetual care fund means for Greenlawn is the full-time employment of three people who handle the mowing, grave digging, general landscaping and grounds upkeep.
“The families are responsible for taking care of specific graves,” Hebert said. “They might want to have their marker cleaned up and looking like new again because bronze markers will start to oxidize, things like that.”
About 3,700 people have been buried in that cemetery. There is more space for development.
Lafayette Memorial Park owner and president Danny Delhomme employs four people on his maintenance staff.
About 5,000 people are buried in his cemetery, which has space for the development of about 10,000 more grave sites.
“It’s just very expensive to develop a cemetery and abide by the laws,” Delhomme said. “To get one started, a person has to have a lot of money to start that perpetual-care fund.”
Delhomme says he is working constantly to increase the amount of money in the perpetual-care fund.
Because many cemeteries are land-locked and cannot further develop land for burials, that perpetual fund is critical.
But it wasn’t always critical or even necessary, Broussard said.
“Years back, you didn’t have to ask for volunteers,” Broussard said. “It was just something that people did — take care of the dead. Times change.”
Established in 1821, Lafayette Parish’s oldest permanent burial site is the historic St. John Cemetery.
Cemetery manager Brady LeBlanc is unsure of how many people are buried there or of how much space is left for development.
“Honestly, we’re almost 200 years old, so we really don’t have any idea,” LeBlanc said. “Prior to 1970 when computers became efficient, everything was written by hand, and some of the documentation has been lost through the years.”
LeBlanc says he is responsible for just about everything in the cemetery.
A recent responsibility for LeBlanc and the cemetery is the annual burial of the unclaimed human remains that are housed at the Lafayette Parish Coroner’s Office.
The burial happens on All Souls’ Day on Nov. 2 and began two years ago with the burial of 93 unclaimed remains collected at the coroner’s office over a 20-year period.
“Last year, we buried 35,” LeBlanc said. “This year, I already have 15 to bury, and it’s only May. By November, we should have 30 or 40 again.”
Today, many people will visit the graves of loved ones for Memorial Day.
Some cemeteries, such as Greenlawn and Lafayette Memorial Park, also offer special Memorial Day services for the community as a way to honor fallen veterans.
“After 50 years of doing the Memorial Day tribute,” Hebert said, “keeping the program fresh poses a different kind of challenge.”
Lafayette Parish cemeteries
■ Bethel Methodist Church Cemetery, Duson
■ Calvary Cemetery – Mausoleum of Resurrection, Lafayette
■ Christ Sanctified and Holy Church Cemetery, Duson
■ Congregation of the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church Cemetery, Broussard
■ De La Salle Christian Brothers Cemetery, Lafayette
■ Evangeline Memorial Gardens, Carencro
■ Fountain Memorial Garden and Mausoleum, Lafayette
■ Gethsemane Gardens Cemetery, Lafayette
■ Greenlawn Memorial Gardens, Lafayette
■ Holy Mary Mother of God Cemetery and Mausoleum, Lafayette
■ Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Cemetery, Lafayette
■ Kimble Chapel Episcopal Methodist Cemetery, Ridge
■Lafayette Memorial Park, Lafayette
■ Mallalieu United Methodist Church Cemetery, Lafayette
■ Our Lady of the Assumption Church Cemetery, Carencro
■ Progressive Baptist Church Cemetery, Lafayette
■ Silverado Cemetery, Lafayette
■ St. Anne Cemetery, Youngsville
■ St. Basil Church Cemetery, Duson
■ St. Benedict Cemetery, Duson
■ St. James C. M. E. Cemetery, Youngsville
■ St. John Cemetery, Lafayette
■ St. Joseph Cemetery, Broussard
■ St. Joseph Cemetery, Lafayette
■ St. Martin de Porres Cemetery, Scott
■ St. Peter Cemetery, Carencro
■ St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Cemetery, Duson
■ Sts. Peter and Paul Cemeter, Scott
■ The Episcopal Church of the Ascension, Lafayette
■ Trinity C. M. E. Church Cemetery, Lafayette
■ Whittington Cemetery, Lafayette
Source: Louisiana Cemetery Board
Celebrate Memorial Day
• Annual Memorial Day Program
9 a.m. Monday at Fountain Memorial Funeral Home Cemetery, 1010 Pandora Street, Lafayette. 337-981-7098.
Outdoor Memorial Day Service in the Veteran’s Section of Fountain Memorial Cemetery, featuring Knights of Columbus color guard assemblies in full regalia, gun salute and TAPS performance by VFW Post 9822 as well as patriotic musical selections.
• 50th annual Memorial Day Celebration
Noon, Monday, at Greenlawn Memorial Gardens, 2300 N. University Ave., Lafayette. 337-706-8941.
The ceremony will honor John “Jack” Henton, Jr. (d.) as the 2014 Distinguished Veteran of the Year. Entertainment will be provided by members of the renowned Destination Choir of Destiny of Faith Church who will sing their renditions of military selections. The public is invited to attend. Light refreshments will be served.
• Memorial Day Service
3 p.m. Monday at Lafayette Memorial Park Cemetery, 2111 W. Pinhook Road, Lafayette. 337-235-3065.
Congressman Charles Boustany will serve as guest speaker.
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