Burials In Potter's Field Sad But Always Sun-Kissed
12-08-1993 Times Picayune

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Wrapped in body bags and placed in plywood coffins, the dead
brought to Potter's Field are allotted one blessing. They are
never buried in the rain.

"We can always wait for good weather 'cause there's never a
funeral," said Roosevelt McGuire, a gravedigger at the city
cemetery for the unclaimed, unwanted and those whose families
are unable to pay for burial. "If it's raining, we just call
and tell them at the coroner's office to wait till another
day."

Tuesday was a good day for burying. Welcomed by sunshine and a
cool blue sky, two coroner's office vans rolled across the open
field of green on Old Gentilly Road.

"How many boxes you got all told?" McGuire asked the driver of
one van.

"We got 12," the driver answered as he and two helpers, wearing
plastic gloves, began sliding the boxes from the vans and
stacking them in five graves.

The first coffin had a man's name scribbled on it and the date
11-17-93. It made a splash as it hit the smelly water at the
bottom of a deep hole in the ground.

It took three men to carry the next coffin to the grave site.

"Hurry up!" one of them cried as the nails began to pop and the
top and bottom of the box began to fall open.

"He must be a big fellow," McGuire said.

"Yeah, we had a hard time getting him in the box," one man said
as they set the second coffin on top of the first.

A third coffin was placed in the hole. This one cradled 11
babies, 10 stillborns and one who died at 4 months.

All told, 22 bodies were buried this autumn day, bringing the
total number of burials falling on the taxpayers this year to
307.

"When I started as a clerk in 1967, we buried about 30 bodies a
year," said John Gagliano, the coroner's chief investigator.
"Now we usually bury 40 or more from November through December.
I can't get the lumber fast enough."

The plywood coffins cost about $100 and the body bags are $50,
Gagliano said. City carpenters build the coffins and the
coroner's office transports the bodies to Resthaven Memorial
Park, contracted by the city to dig the graves and maintain
Potters' Field, between Resthaven's whitewashed tombs and a
city dump in eastern New Orleans.

The number of city-financed burials this year is expected to
double the total of 163 in 1991.

The coroner's office is handling more AIDS-related deaths - 37
so far this year - and is burying more murder victims, Gagliano
said.

But the most dramatic increase in Potter's Field burials is
still-born babies. Last year, 45 still-borns were buried. The
10 buried Tuesday brings this year's total to 95.

"Younger and younger people are having children, and their
bodies aren't ready," Gagliano said. And the young mothers are
not getting proper prenatal care, he said.

Many of these babies and many more adults are being buried by
the city because of hard times and because family ties are not
as strong as they used to be, Gagliano said.

"There was a time when family groups were together and felt,
'I'm going to give my loved one a proper burial no matter what
it takes,' " Gagliano said. "Now, the attitude is, 'We haven't
seen him for years. You bury him.' And we can't force anyone to
bury their family members."

Nor can the city force families to use burial policies to bury
their dead, he said, noting that beneficiaries sometimes cash
in burial policies.

"The policies vary, but basically the beneficiary can use that
money even though the intended purpose was for burial," state
Deputy Insurance Commissioner Allan Pursnell said. "It's up to
the beneficiary to make sure it goes to the proper use."

The city will not cremate the unclaimed for fear of litigation,
Gagliano said.

"We feel if we bury them, we can pull the body out and give it
to anyone who comes for it in the future," he said.

The city can bury a body if no one claims it after 30 days, he
said.

Along with more burials, deaths handled by the coroner's office
are up by about 800 this year, and autopsies are up by 220,
Gagliano said.

Although the number of bodies handled by the city is
increasing, the coroner's office budget is dropping. In 1992,
the office received $1.1 million from the city; in 1993, it
received about $1 million; and next year the city has budgeted
about $986,000 for the coroner's office, Gagliano said.

"The city pays us $1,500 a month - the same as we received in
1972," said Resthaven's director, Cecilia Roberts. "Sometimes
it takes awhile to get paid. The city does have its problems."

Roberts said visitors to Potter's Field are rare, but she
remembered one woman who came to the cemetery to claim the body
of her daughter, buried five years before.

"She had reported her daughter missing but hadn't gone to the
coroner's office," Roberts said. "I guess she was holding on to
hope."