Augustus Bernau family tomb Metairie Cemetery, Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Submitted:  Debbie-Lee Hadsall DeLerno
Photos at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/orleans/cemmetare.htm

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Source: photographs taken (five)  and text copied from inscriptions section 114
(side panel)
United till death through terrestrial life
United through death in life celestial.

To the model woman And Model wife.

Elizabeth Hale Bernau
A native of Findley, Ohio
Who died March 29th 1891
In the 38th year of her age.

Erects this monument
The grateful husband
Augustus Bernau.
A native of Athens, Greece
Who died July 14th, 1893
In the 47th year of his age

What therefore God hath joined together,
Let no man put asunder.

(back panel)
The following words taken from an oration delivered by Augustus Bernau on
the occasion of the laying of a corner stone in this cemetery, Have by his
faithful wife, been selected as her epitaph:

"Looking up to the sky, Looking upon the earth, upon the living, upon the
resting places of the dead, we recognize there in undeniable evidence of the
government of law.  We know that at a certain hour today, the sun's rays
which illuminate the earth must disappear, yielding to the pale light of the
moon and stars.  Recipients of the reflection of its own light and all
resulting from the rotary movements of the earth, and in all this mysterious
regularity, we recognize the government of the law.  For were it not for
such government, destruction would ensue.

Looking for instance at one's own self we know that we partake of food, To
maintain the circulation of the blood.  The heart's pulsations indicating
the regularity of its diffusion, That the brain as the seat of human
intellect, conveys its messages of self guidance through innumerable carnal
wires, ramified through the body, and all this, there is evidence of
government and of law.

But where or what is the spring that drives the wheels of the human
organism, what or where is the power that maintains and enforces the law;
whence comes life? What is death?

The solution of this mystery is the prerogative of those who here lie silent
in their graves.

Let us hope, that when death shall claim us, we may find the solution of
life's mystery. In the verity of the words divine:

"I AM THE RESSURECTION AND THE LIFE. HE WHO BELIEVETH IN ME THOUGH HE BE
DEAD, YET SHALL HE LIVE."

(other side panel)
(written in Greek characters)

(front panel)
(an open end exposing an alter inside the square shaped tomb with a bell
pull for the bell at the top of the building that was on occasion used)