Confession of a Ten-year Old ! Submitted by Maurice Duvic Sr ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** I've been following the thread that questions the existence of a "slot" at the back of tombs and now offer this memory: In the late Twenties some of the kids in my neighborhood, Including me, use to play in the cemeteries at the end of Banks Street - St. Patricks #l, Potters" Field (Now Charity Hospital) and Fireman's I believe I mentioned before that we used the mounds of earth in Potters" Field as trenches in our "war" games. There were no "sextons" or others in attendance at that time to control us. The western boundary of Fireman's was a wall of tombs, three or four crypts high. (I know there's an unwritten law in New Orleans that forbids the use of points of the compass for directions, so I'll say, "The Basin side of the cemetery.") I'm sure it was the Fireman's because that is the only one of the three with these tombs. I say that because we didn't know the names of the cemeteries - we always entered at the Banks Street side and never got as far as the main entrances at City Park Avenue-Canal Street Anyway, this "wall" was in terrible disrepair. The back was of brick that, in places, had moved a few inches away from the rest of the structure. Also, in some places, the top was missing, revealing, to a kid that had climbed to the top, the fact that the "floors" of the tombs were shorter than the side walls, creating the "slot" at the rear that has been in question. One day we discovered a human skull that was at the back of a tomb that was open from the top. With a broomstick that we used for ball games, we managed to lift it out - and we took it home. My mother almost had a fit when she saw it. Needless to say, the sun was barely up the next morning when we had the skull back where it came from. (I assume the statute of limitations bars any prosecution at this time, eh? 'And that repairs have been made to the tombs. The property between the row of tombs and the New Basin Canal was grown up in weeds and saplings. We used to "jump" rabbits here - occasionally successfully! A street was eventually paved from Banks Street, along the side of the New Basin Canal (Now part of the Interstate Hwy.) to its intersection with City Park Avenue. The "Halfway House" that collected fares, etc. for "Shell Road" that bordered Metairie Cemetery and "ran" to the Lake - now Pontchartrain Boulevard, - was at this intersection. The "Halfway House" was a speakeasy for a while (The Tenth Precinct Police Station was about a block away!) then, during the Depression, it became the first "Double Dip" ice cream parlor in the city. Have I digressed? ! ***************************************************************************** Yes, Dale, it is , and probably was Cypress Grove. Some folks previously 'splained the "Firemen's" monicker, I believe. Was there a monument to firemen at the front? Believe there was a huge bell mounted in the entranceway, eh? Is the Chinese tomb still there? On the right of the main drag that extends from the entrance all the way back, about 75 yards from the front. I remember how curious we were when we found partially burned joss sticks stuck in a "window box" in front of a crypt. Saw a lot of them in China in front of a temple up a mountain south of Canton,. New Orleans use to have a Chinatown: along Tulane Avenue, Liberty Street to Elks Place area. A number of stores selling stuff weired to us. "Boudreaux" - Must be thousands in Louisiana, eh? Ory Boudreaux, Laplace, was in my squadron in NOrth Africa. Re what I called a speakeasy: It really wasn't that. The building was vacant most of the time in the mid-Twenties , probably because of Prohibition. However, I remember my parents going to a New Year's Eve party there where liquor was sold. It had the name "Halfway House" probably because it was approximately halfway out Shell Road to the Lake. Best regards to all and "Thanks" to those writers of nice letters re my stuff. *****************************************************************************