Perpetual care for the dead requires much effort by the living

Regardless of age or stage of life, most people have at one time or another considered options for residency. Small apartment, condo, highrise, suburban home, country farm, the options are many. Yet each person has one final resting place often overlooked or forgotten until it’s time to go there and long after we might be forgotten.

Sooner or later every person will need a final resting place, yet the subject is oftentimes not found in everyday conversation, unless one is a genealogist, a family historian seeking to know more about relatives who died long ago.

Finding an ancestor’s burial place for one Iberia Parish resident, Patrick Onellion, led him to discover more than he could have imagined. For the past 48 of his 62 years, the local native has worked as a draftsman outside of New Iberia, while living just off Louisiana 14. He is now fully engrossed in preserving his legacy as well as the city’s.

A memorial marker in front of the Library and City Hall says of Onellion’s ancestor, Frederic Henri Duperier, that he settled in New Iberia in 1816. After marrying Hortense Berard and successfully working as a merchant and planter, Duperier donated land in 1837 for a Catholic church, now called St. Peter’s.

That same year Duperier laid out streets and town-lots between Julia and Iberia streets. Under his leadership the town was incorporated March 13, 1839, two days before his death and burial at St. Peter’s new cemetery. The village of “Iberia” embraced the area between Bank Avenue and French Street, Bayou Teche and Pershing Street. In 1847 the name was changed to “New Iberia,” according to the marker.

Duperier was not alone in his endeavor to start a community that would thrive. Continuing his legacy, through multiple lines still notable in Iberia Parish, Onellion has become part of a group of residents concerned about the condition of the St. Peter’s Catholic Cemetery where many of the area’s historic figures are entombed.

“I feel an obligation to the people buried there,” Onellion said. “They built the city I love. I have a lot of my ancestors there.”

Onellion became involved in the cemetery project, he said, by researching the burial place of his great-great-grandmother, Alphonsine Duperier Hebert. The daughter of Frederick Henri Duperier, she was married to Alexis Hebert, a cattleman from Vermilion parish. Onellion said his passion to discover family historical roots was spurred on after attending a talk about the Last Island earlier this year at the Jeanerette Museum. The last survivors, Dr. Alfred and Emma Mille Duperier, are also part of his heritage as well as New Iberia’s.

While searching for Alphonsine’s tombstone at St. Peter’s Cemetery, Onellion realized the disrepair of the cemetery and jumped in to help the group that started on the project about two years ago. Onellion and others have been walking each row of the cemetery to confirm the census of names or plots numbering 10,633 on the original spreadsheet created by Don Louviere and maintained by the church.

Brad Ste. Marie, cemetery manager, is the official in charge, though he is quick to say it is the many volunteers who are to be credited for the work that is being accomplished. Yet, each one will point back to Ste. Marie as the one organizing the revitalization with fundraising and maintenance of the tombs.

Ste. Marie follows in the footsteps of longtime cemetery manager Pierre Schwing, recognized by a marker at the gate of St. Peter’s Cemetery for his years of dedicated service and care. Ste. Marie started learning the ropes from Schwing two years ago and quickly realized the one-man job needed an army. Schwing and Onellion are related through the Duperier line.

“I’m not shy or embarrassed. I might twist a few arms and have called in a lot of favors, but people have stepped up,” said Ste. Marie. “They’ve done all the work. My deal is the finances.”

Ste. Marie said the bare-bone expenses are about $8,000 a year and they are about at the break-even mark for simple upkeep. Only one person is on staff, maintenance supervisor Roland Theriot. The first time he and Ste. Marie visited the cemetery together, Ste. Marie said, they got a pickup truck and filled 13 55-gallon cans of trash. He said they’re still picking up trash but less and less.

For one reason, he said, the homeless people living in one of the tombs are no longer there. Ste. Marie brought in people like Paul Gulotta who is helping to organize the census taking and updating the spreadsheet. Freddie DeCourt brings his restoration expertise and visibility among people in the community. Dean Wattigny is on the board for legal issues, which are very tightly held and supervised by the Louisiana Cemetery Association. Sheriff Louis Ackal assists with work crews and so many others lend a hand. Ste. Marie asked people he knew who then turned around and asked others.

There are even volunteers from other states with roots in New Iberia who are helping. Don Louviere created the spreadsheets, with the help of Shirley Broussard and others in the area, not just for St. Peter’s Church but for 50 cemeteries, mostly in South Louisiana. Louviere’s mother was from Loreauville and his father’s family is from nearby, but the bulk of his clan moved to Texas in 1900. His contributions from Houston are invaluable, Ste. Marie said.

Another contributor to the original spreadsheets from Louviere is Nancy Armentor Lees. She graduated from New Iberia High School in 1973 and moved away when she married. Lees and Louviere started working together when the cemetery in Patoutville was threatened. Her efforts online to trace ancestors of those long buried is helping to bring new annual dues of $50 per family into the cemetery fund.

There are limitations as to what can be done, said DeCourt. The laws have tied up the restoration process and forced the people involved to research descendants. Their permission and funding is needed to help with the much needed historical repair of the tombs. That is of particular interest to DeCourt who said patching old mortar with modern techniques or using the wrong kind of paint can do more damage when the purpose was to repair and protect the tombs for posterity.

St. Peter’s Cemetery is not the only one in need of repair or support for perpetual care. One of the oldest in the area is St. Michael’s in St. Martinville with deaths dating back to the 1700s.

The Louisiana Cemeteries website lists more than 62 cemeteries in Iberia Parish, including St. Nicholas in Patoutville, one of earliest deaths of 2,144 listed was in 1870. The St. John the Evangelist Church Cemetery in Jeanerette lists 4,750 on its spreadsheet dating back to 1880. Rose Hill Cemetery’s Jewish section lists David Davis, a Louisiana infantry soldier, who fought in the Spanish American War of 1898.

Ste. Marie hopes to create future fundraising projects and events that will tie in the history of New Iberia with the cemetery. Plans are developing, but some discussions have included a cemetery tour or re-enactments by actors in costume playing the role of various history makers.

“The way I see it, these people deserve dignity,” Ste. Marie said. “We’re going to give it to them. Everybody working on the project agrees with that philosophy.”

Townsfolk who might be on the historical tour might include Onellion’s other relatives. Ernest John Carstons owned a dry goods store on the corner of Julia and Main streets and was on the first City Council. Jules Rene Blanchet on Onellion’s mother’s side owned a drug store in town and was a water-boy in the Confederate Army.

According to family records, Blanchet attempted to serve Confederate General Alfred Mouton a bit of water after he was wounded in battle, but Mouton died before he could drink it.

Onellion has been unable to locate Alphonsine’s grave although her death, he said, is recorded in an early newspaper article in the “Sugar Bowl.” She is also listed in the church cemetery records. Her death was a result of an oil lantern explosion which caught her nightgown on fire.

According to his research, she leaned against a wooden hutch to put the fire out and the scorched imprint of her 43 year old body is all that remains as a tombstone. At the time of her death, he said, she was probably buried in one of two unmarked graves in the Duperier plot. Onellion hopes to know more by the time he finishes the census.

A cemetery might be the resting place of the dead, but the living are responsible for its perpetual care. Thanks to the efforts of many, a new day is dawning at St. Peter’s Cemetery. It’s only the beginning, Ste. Marie said. The key thing, he said, is awareness.