They work tirelessly so souls rest in peace

Souls resting in peace in unmarked grave sites deserve to be remembered and one local group, comprised of some out-of-state members, is doing whatever it can to ensure those memories are intact for future generations.

Julaine Deare Shexnayder, member of the Friends of the Cemetery, said “even if it’s only a short memory when his or her name is read by those walking through a cemetery, no one should be lost to future generations.”

Preserving these memories is a project that the Friends of the Cemetery undertook several years ago, beginning with unmarked grave sites in Patoutville’s St. Nicholas Cemetery. The initial project has expanded since to include work in St. Peter’s Cemetery in New Iberia, St. John the Evangelist in Jeanerette and Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Charenton.

Don Louviere, the group’s founding member who travels to work in area cemeteries from his home in Houston, said preservation is the heart of their projects.

“We are going to lose valuable information in these cemeteries,” he said.

Church records are disappearing and dilapidated gravesites do not improve on their own to communicate this family history.

Louviere said the group is now photographing every unmarked grave and uploading the information, as much as they have about the gravesite, online for other people who are doing research about family members to access. They have thoroughly mapped all four cemeteries, making it easier for inquiring people to find what they might be looking for.

He said the group also has taken GPS readings in the cemeteries, making it possible for future visitors to access information about a tomb through their cell phones.

The group is committed to continuing to identify unmarked gravesites and is seeking information on any other family members that might have been interred in the same tomb without notation. The Friends group sells small metal plaques for $10 to descendants of those in unmarked sites, which they engrave with the correct headstone information to preserve the loved one’s memory.

Members of the Friends of the Cemetery will attend commemoration ceremonies in area cemeteries on All Saints Day Saturday and cemetery blessings on All Souls Day Sunday with hopes of offering their help to parishioners or anyone with any information on these unmarked gravesites.

Beyond this weekend’s events, the group will ask anyone with information on any of the unmarked tombs to contact the church rectory secretary or someone in the Friends organization.

Although the group is busy mapping these four cemeteries, unmarked and deteriorating graves are a problem everywhere, Shexnayder said. Other cemeteries are lining up and asking for the group’s help on their property, as well, she said.

“We have more cemeteries on a tentative schedule,” she said. “It’s hard with a project like this to ever say your finished.”