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This project is an effort to document the
cemeteries in Louisiana's state-defined coastal zone.
At this point we have GPS located, photographed and collected histories
on
67 cemeteries and 16 parishes.
Louisiana loses an acre every 24 minutes
to coast erosion. This project came about because of one of my students
Miss Jessica Schexnayder
who
wrote a paper on cemeteries in Louisiana.
I was fascinated by that paper and Jessica approached me one day
and asked if I would be interested in participating in a project that she was
very interested in doing
and it had to do, was related to, documenting these cemeteries
that are being lost through a variety of reasons.
Our project is different because we're collecting the
outer perimeter points for each cemetery surveyed
and this allows the total land area for each
cemetery to be documented instead of a few random points. By documenting them
we can at least preserve the information about them.
The GPS coordinates will always be there even if the land
is lost to coastal erosion. So it's our way
of preserving the past. In 2012, we were contacted by representatives from the
State Department of Health and Hospitals asking for the cemetery points we collected in
Saint Bernard Parish.
And these points were used in a cemetery restoration effort after Hurricane
Isaac.
It was really incredible to be able to share our data and know that it was
being used for such an important purpose.
That's really what this project is all about. I've learned that in looking at
the cemetery's, the stones,
we learned so much about the people who lived in these areas who no longer live
there.
One of the things that I find most fascinating is that the cemeteries
really reflect immigration patterns and settlement of coastal Louisiana
from that Acadians - cajuns - in the west and central part of the state to the French,
Spanish, and German population of the southeast. And these are just a few
examples.
Louisiana's population reflects a diverse group of people from all over the world.
The funding came from a Louisiana Sea Grant project development grant
and it's currently going through January of 2014 and that's when we'll finish the project.
Once the project is completed there will be an interactive map showing all of the
cemeteries that were included.
The map will be available to the public and it will include
point data and some photographs. What's next is the book.
We signed a contract with LSU Press. We will continue
to GPS locate and photograph the cemeteries until the end of January.
The contract states that we must have everything turned end to the Press by
May of 2014. So until then, we'll continue to work and to write.