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ST. JOSEPH CEMETERIES NO. 1 and NO. 2
Fig. 64C. This fantastic tomb is decorated with no less than ten crosses and boasts two metal shrines. It is an excellent example of cemetery folk art. (Photo by Leonard V. Huber.)
The St. Joseph Cemetery No. 1 on Washington Avenue was dedicated in 1854 by the St. Joseph German Orphan Asylum Association. Thomas Keosh was president and George Hirsch secretary. There was a dual purpose in the founding of this cemetery-first, to provide a place of burial for the German immigrants and their descendants who lived in the suburb of Lafayette and, second, to provide a source of revenue for the nuns of the Sisters of Notre Dame who managed the St. Joseph German Orphan Asylum. The first superintendent of St. Joseph Cemetery was Mathias Huber whose term of office was from 1855 to 1870.
The cemetery filled with such rapidity that an addition became necessary, and on July 2, 1873, permission was given by the city council to extend the cemetery to the block behind the first section. This too filled, and in time the cemeteries became somewhat dilapidated. When the streets surrounding it were paved and the bills for the paving were presented, the sisters found that they had a liability on their hands instead of the income-producing property that had for years been a source of revenue. They asked to be relieved of their property, and Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel accepted it for the diocese. It was then that Stanley J. Guerin, an interested Catholic layman, came to the rescue of the cemeteries. He instituted reforms, and under his hand the neglect which had set in was stayed and the cemeteries made presentable once more.
A feature of St. Joseph Cemetery No. 1 is the chapel which is the original church of the former St. Mary Assumption Parish (fig. 65). The frame building which was constructed in 1844 seated eighty. It was moved in 1862 when the St. Mary's Assumption Church in the present St. Alphonsus Parish was constructed. In this cemetery one sees the family names of old-time"'uptown residents such as the Wegmanns, the Babsts, the Fabachers.
In the second St. Joseph Cemetery is a miniature Gothic chapel complete with
Fig. 65. The original chapel of the St. Mary's Assumption Congregation was moved to St. loseph No. 1 in 1862. Built in 1844, it is one of the oldest buildings in uptown New Orleans.
Fig. 66. This former tomb of the Redemptorist fathers provides a variation in the otherwise dull and repetitious monumental design which characterizes the St. Joseph cemeteries.