N.O. Catholic Cemeteries to host inaugural St. Joseph’s altar

Above: Many of those interred inside St. Joseph Cemetery No. 1 on Washington Avenue are of German descent. On March 19, the cemetery's mortuary chapel will be the site of New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries’ inaugural St. Joseph's altar. (Photos courtesy of New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries)

By BETH DONZE
Clarion Herald

New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries is coordinating an event that is believed to be the first of its kind – a cemetery-based St. Joseph’s altar.

On March 19, a St. Joseph’s altar will open for public viewing inside the St. Joseph Cemetery Memorial Chapel, located on the South Liberty Street side of St. Joseph Cemetery No. 1, 2220 Washington Ave. in New Orleans.

While the schedule for the day and other logistics are in the preliminary stages, Heather Veneziano, director of public engagement and development for New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries, is looking for approximately six additional volunteers to join the planning committee.

Veneziano foresees the committee work will involve sourcing supplies and asking for donations of baked items from the public, area bakeries and restaurants.

“By late February, we’ll start figuring out who's going to bake what and the timeline for that,” Veneziano said. “This first year, the altar will be fairly simple and then grow as more people become aware of it and more engaged with it.”

Tentative plans include giving visitors small bags containing the traditional assortment of altar contents, and placing photos of the deceased on the altar, she said.

“I think (memorial photographs) would be really fitting, considering the location,” Veneziano said.

Will expose visitors to German history of N.O.

Veneziano said the idea of erecting a St. Joseph's altar at a Catholic cemetery is something she has wanted to do for a couple of years, but the pandemic intervened.

“I love St. Joseph’s Day altars – I think they're a really wonderful way to get the community together and engage people’s faith outside of Mass,” said Veneziano, who also has a personal connection to the tradition – March 19 is her late grandmother’s birthday.

Veneziano said she hopes hosting the altar at St. Joseph Cemetery will also introduce the public to one of the city’s lesser-known Catholic burial grounds. St. Joseph Cemetery No. 1 was established in 1854 by the St. Joseph German Orphan Asylum Association to provide a final resting place for German immigrants – many of whom worshiped at nearby St. Mary’s Assumption Church – and to supply an ongoing source of income for the orphanage, a ministry of the Sisters of Notre Dame.

Within its first 20 years of operation, the cemetery became overcrowded, and in 1873 permission was granted by the city of New Orleans to extend the cemetery to include the block behind it, bordering Sixth and Seventh streets (today’s St. Joseph Cemetery No. 2).
 Th1973
In the early 1960s, during the term of Archbishop Joseph Rummel, the Sisters of Notre Dame requested to be relieved of St. Joseph Cemetery, and the Archdiocese of New Orleans acquired it in 1968.
In 1997, when St. Joseph Cemetery No. 1’s St. Mary’s Chapel (the original St. Mary’s Assumption Church) was dismantled and reconstructed at 1516 Jackson Ave., the St. Joseph Cemetery Memorial Chapel was built to hold services for those interred within St. Joseph Cemetery Nos. 1 and 2.

“We want to get more people interested in using (the chapel) for memorial Masses and other occasions,” Veneziano said. “Setting up a St. Joseph’s Day Altar is a nice way to introduce people to St. Joseph Cemetery in a way that’s fun, uplifting and community based.”

Veneziano added her hope that the event would turn the public’s attention to the numerous German immigrants interred within the site.

“When thinking about the history of New Orleans, the German population often gets left out of the broader discussion, but they were an integral immigrant group that really built up a lot of industry and the business community in New Orleans,” she said.

Last semester, graduate students enrolled in Tulane University’s Preservation Studies program surveyed tombs within the cemetery and completed genealogies of some of the interred.

“The lives of some of the people were just so amazing, so we’re kind of bringing that memory back into the public realm,” Veneziano said. “It’s kind of like a ‘who’s who’ when you walk up and down the aisles.”

Veneziano said when she shared her altar idea with friends, some of them asked her, “Why are you mounting a Sicilian-Italian tradition in a German cemetery?”

“Because St. Joseph is not a saint for one ethnic group,” Veneziano told them. “I think everyone can find something in St. Joseph and his deeds to connect with.”

To learn more about volunteering for the altar, email Heather Veneziano at [email protected].

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