Italian American Digest JT DIGEST Summer 2018 June First (1) | Page 8

I talian A merican D igest
PAGE 8
Tricentennial cont. from page 7
identify the elderly Iorlando Jordano
and his seventeen-year-old son Frank
as her attackers, and they were duly
convicted of murder.
Frank was sentenced to hang, only
to have Rosie retract her accusation
nine months later.
The serial killer known as the
“Axeman of New Orleans” is per-
haps most famous for a letter pur-
porting to be from the Axeman
himself published in the Times-
Picayune. He was, he claimed, “a
fell demon from hottest hell” who
would be walking the streets of the
city the next Tuesday night searching
for more victims. But, he promised,
anyone in a house in which a jazz
band played would be safe.
The Axeman never struck again,
and what the killer might have had
against Italian grocers has never been
explained. But the idea of a jazz-
loving serial killer still haunts the
imagination of aficiona-
dos of true crime.
- Miriam C. Davis,
author of The Axeman
of New Orleans: The
True Story
CEMETERIES
A walk through a
New Orleans cemetery
is not so much a “step back in time”
as many steps through each year of
time, piled upon one another in a
milieu of the contemporary and the
historic. We walk past the work of
many hands who have carved tab-
lets and constructed tombs. And we
recognize the names of those interred
therein, gleaning what we can of
what their lives were like.
Within the landscapes of the more
than forty cemeteries in the city of
New Orleans are innumerable fin-
gerprints of those who constructed
them.
Among those fingerprints are
those of Italian heritage – both
native-born and Italian-extracted.
The works of Italian artisans, sculp-
tors, and laborers are laid together,
brick by brick, beside the mortal re-
mains of Italians who arrived in New
Orleans and forged communities.
But the Italian influence on New
Orleans cemeteries is even more an-
cient than the work of hands and the
record of lives.
The very origin of above-ground
burial can merit a nod to the Roman
empire. In the late eighteenth centu-
The Italian Mutual Benevolent Tomb
SUMMER 2018
ry, as the European continent revo-
lutionized cultural understandings of
death and burial, the rediscovery of
the Appian Way contributed to a shift
in burial practices in both France and
Spain. This ancient Roman fune-
real avenue was lined with above
ground tombs, which undoubtedly
influenced the rise of contemporary
funeral architecture in
both Parisian cemeter-
ies like Pere Lachaise
and Spanish colonial
cemeteries. In this way,
above ground burial
came to New Orleans
in the 1790s by way of
colonial Spain, Enlight-
enment France, and
ancient Rome.
By the 1850s, the Italian commu-
nity in New Orleans was robust and
established. Like many who came
to the city from elsewhere, they
organized into benevolent societies
that provided a social safety net for
their members. Societies also offered
burial support.
The first Italian society tomb was
built in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1
in 1857. It was designed by Pietro
Gualdi and featured two large sculp-
tures: one depicting Charity with two
children at her knee, and the other
representing Italia, crowned with
laurel and holding aloft a sword.
The first Italian society in New
Orleans was formed by those who
had left their home country in the
first throes of national unification.
By the late nineteenth century,
immigration from Italy increased
enormously, leading to new societ-
ies which were often organized by
the members’ city of origin (e.g.,
Contessa Entellina, Sciacca, Termini,
Piana dei Greci). These societies
built their own, newer tombs in Me-
tairie Cemetery, Odd Fellows Rest,