All Saints Day
One of the most iconic images that visitors have of New Orleans is our cemeteries. If you live in Boise, odds are you’ve never seen tombs above ground before. Odds are even better that, in Boise, the day after Halloween, or All Saints Day, is not spent cleaning, painting and picnicking next to Grandma Nellie’s final resting place.
But this is New Orleans. And our New Orleans traditions run deep.
From GoNola.com:
“Cleaning up the family plot is often a bit more complicated in New Orleans than other parts of the United States, because we regularly bury our loved ones above-ground. The New Orleans cemetery tour guides will tell stories of how this had to be done in the early years of the city, since burying coffins below sea level would force them to the surface as the water table would rise. The truth of the tradition is a bit more simple (and obvious): above-ground burial was something that came over to New Orleans from France….”
