St. Joseph's Cemetery (as seen in Ripley's Believe It or Not!)
Everyone has heard of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Attractions… but who knew that one of the “oddities” that they highlighted existed just minutes from my grandparents’ house. St. Joseph’s cemetery, in Rayne, Louisiana, caught the of Robert Ripley, who included the it in his famous newspaper cartoon early in the century. Only recently has the graveyard again been run as an attraction in "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" and people come from around the world to see the only cemetery in the Judeo-Christian world that faces north-south rather than east-west. So here is the story:
After the original church at Poupeville was moved closer to the Rayne Depot, at the current site of Rayne's St. Joseph's Catholic Church, a cemetery was laid-out to the south of the relocated church. Bucking Christian tradition, the graveyard began with the graves placed in a north-south position rather than the traditional east-west position (the east metaphorically representing the beginning of life with the rising of the sun and the west metaphorically representing the ending of life with the setting of the sun). Perhaps the gravedigger did not have a compass. Perhaps the priest did not oversee the work of a common laborer. Whatever the case, the most commonly accepted version of what happened is that the graves were mislaid and before the mistake was discovered, too many people had been buried; the expense of reburials (not to mention the effect it would have had on the grieving families) was too great a cost. The citizens allowed the cemetery to remain as it had originally been placed, albeit at the expense of being a rarity in the civilized Western world.
I adore cemeteries in Louisiana… I love the headstones and the odd sentiments that are often found on them due to the cultural mesh found here. I love the above ground graves and the family history often found close together. Visiting this cemetery, learning the history and just being present here was a neat experience.
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