Expert gives basics on historic tomb restoration

By BETH DONZE
Clarion Herald

During visits to New Orleans’ oldest Catholic burial grounds, sometimes the tendency is to focus on the tombs that are in varied states of disrepair. Yet what many visitors fail to take into account is that responsibility for tomb maintenance rests on tomb owners – and not on the cemetery. Moreover, nearly two dozen “abandoned” tombs have been successfully restored since 2017 through donations to a fund established by New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries (NOCC).

The Clarion Herald asked Heather Veneziano, NOCC’s director of public engagement and development, to shed light on the sometimes confusing topic of historic tomb restoration. Her interview follows:

What is the biggest misconception the public has about crumbling tombs?

I don’t think people understand that in the absence of perpetual care, it is the property owner’s responsibility to do the upkeep on their tomb. The cemetery functions a lot like a city. We will take care of the aisles and the infrastructure of the city, but we don’t take care of the “houses” in the city. The homeowners take care of their houses. The option of perpetual care has only been around since the 1930s – where the property owner pays a one-time, lump sum that goes into a trust and the interest from the trust is used to maintain the tomb in perpetuity. If a tomb is under perpetual care, the cemetery takes care of things like removing any excessive vegetation that’s growing on the tomb, updating the lime wash and taking care of any structural issues that might arise over time. The tomb will always appear in good condition and you don’t have to worry about if you don’t have children (to inherit the tomb) or if you move away. Whenever we sell a cemetery property today, the sale always includes perpetual care. We don’t want to be in the same situation (of so many deteriorating tombs) that we’re in now, 100 years from now.

Can property owners purchase perpetual care “after the fact?”

If your tomb was built prior to the 1930s – prior to the perpetual care program – and if you restore it, it can be entered into the program. It’s a way to get some of those older tombs into perpetual care. A lot of the tombs that are in bad shape date from before 1930, so there’s no one left to take care of them.
 
That leads us to ask: What about tombs that have no clear owner or whose family has died out?

Our definition of an abandoned tomb is one where there is no known owner on file and no interments within the last 50 years. Since 2017, funds to restore 21 historic tombs (at St. Louis Cemetery Nos. 1 and 2 and St. Joseph Cemetery No. 1) have been donated to our Abandoned Tomb Initiative. We have a list of tombs that we think will benefit, but it’s hard to get them all done at once because the money only goes so far. Sometimes, we’ll pick one tomb that’s in really bad shape and restore that one, and other times we will pick two or three that are not in super-bad shape to spread it out a little bit more. We recently had donors with family buried in St. Louis No. 2 who wanted the surrounding tombs to be in better shape, so they asked different family members to donate to the program. We were able to restore a whole bunch of tombs surrounding theirs, which was really beautiful!

How many tombs require moderate to complete overhauls?
 
It depends on the cemetery. For St. Louis No. 2, it’s about 80% (of the tomb inventory), but that cemetery was founded in 1823, so a lot of the tombs are older and don’t have any family associated with them anymore. St. Louis No. 3 has fewer abandoned tombs because it’s a little bit newer.

Could you give us an idea of the restoration process for abandoned tombs?

Because of the drying times between the different layers of stucco, a full restoration takes two to three weeks, depending on the weather. The first step is usually a demo, where we remove any incompatible materials that might be on the tomb from past repair work, such as latex paint or Portland cement. When those products became popular in the 1940s, people didn’t realize that they were trapping moisture inside the tomb’s inner brickwork and hastening its deterioration. So, we’ll strip the tomb back to the bare brick and repair any mortar joints that need attention. Then we apply a “scratch coat” of stucco – a rough coat so the (two subsequent) layers of stucco can stick to it. The walls are finished with a coat of lime wash. Everything we do in the Abandoned Tomb Initiative uses lime-based products to create a permeable membrane on the tomb – so any interior moisture can escape.

Am I permitted to repair my own Catholic cemetery tomb?

You can do work on your own tomb, but we always suggest checking in with the office first. We have experts available to answer questions and go over things, especially if what you’re planning to do potentially might cause harm to the tomb. If you hire anyone to work on your tomb, they have to come into the office and get a permit. We suggest hiring (NOCC-recommended contractors) because they know how our tombs function and how to best treat them.

Are any special tools required?

Some of them, like trowels, are readily available commercially. For cleaning tombs, you want soft-bristle brushes – you don’t want hard plastic or metal bristles. In our cleaning kit (available for purchase at nolacatholiccemeteries.org for in-person pickup at two locations), we include two soft-bristle brushes, because the harder bristles will damage the marble and other stone. It’s the other materials that are not as easy to buy – you can’t buy lime easily. Personally, I would prefer that families stick with cleaning their tomb and hire someone if they want to have any lime work or stucco work done, because it is kind of complicated. There are specific mixing ratios and drying times, so we always encourage families to hire out for this phase of the restoration.

What about marble tombs?

Marble is a really soft stone that does kind of poorly in our climate and stains because of the amount of pollution in our air. In the past, bleach may have (wrongly) been used to clean it, but this weakens the marble. If there are cracks, there are different ways to address this, but again, we suggest hiring someone because it’s a specialty. The newer tombs are mostly granite, which is really easy to clean.

What other restoration work is going on?

During a survey of St. Louis No. 2 in 1980, about 150 tablets were collected and stored offsite with the intention of returning them to their correct tombs one day. Some of the tablets were leaning against tombs or down in the grass. Many were in pieces. That was 1980. They stayed in storage for 40 years. Through our Lost Tablet Project, we are puzzle-piecing these tablets back together, photographing each one and researching the individuals (named on the tablets) to figure out which tomb they belong to. We also went to the Office of Archives and Records to look at the interment books – to see if any locations were listed for these individuals. So, right now we have this massive spreadsheet. We’ve found a lot of the locations, and we hope to put more than half of (the lost tablets) back where they belong in time for St. Louis No. 2’s 200th anniversary in 2023.

How can I help restore our historic Catholic cemeteries?

We have a general donation page on our website, or you could earmark a donation strictly for the Abandoned Tomb Initiative. But the most helpful thing would be to talk to your relatives to see if you have a family tomb in one of our cemeteries, because you might not realize that you do. My main goal is always to reconnect people with their tombs. I don’t want abandoned tombs! I want people to realize that that’s their ancestors and their property, to reclaim these tombs that belong to their family and reconnect with their history. We are available to work with families to find where their tomb might be. We did a genealogical workshop series a couple of years ago that’s on our website – six hours of webinar information on how to track down your ancestors!

Inquiries related to topics discussed in this Q&A can be emailed to [email protected]. The NOCC website is nolacatholiccemeteries.org.

NOCC will be among the cemetery professionals taking part in the Historic New Orleans Collection’s special event “Caring for Your Tomb,” Nov. 6 from 1-3:30 p.m. at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home and Cemeteries, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd., Metairie. A panel will discuss the legal responsibilities of managing your family tomb, how to research its history and best practices for restoration and upkeep. An optional tour of Metairie Cemetery will follow the program, which is free and open to the public. Advance registration required at https://my.hnoc.org/11354.