Trying to find peace

The families of those laid to rest inside the old cemetery down on Shuff Road may finally be able to find some peace for those loved ones that have long passed away.
More than two and half months has passed since Louisiana, and Evangeline Parish, suffered through a historic 100-year flood. Hundreds of residents have received aid to rebuild their homes and once again achieve some sort of normalcy in their everyday lives.
Yet one of the oldest African-American cemeteries in the parish which rests across the road from St. Matthew Baptist Missionary Church remains in disrepair.
Nearly 100 cement-encased tombs need some sort of repair ranging from redigging the plots underneath the tombs so that they can once again be balanced and not tip over, to repairing the actual tombs themselves that were damaged and are unable to be closed all the way or have huge chunks of cement missing from their sides.
The Evangeline Parish Police Jury took steps this week to help repair the cemetery.
“We had to get the paperwork in before the deadline which is November 14th to get the aid needed,” District 9 Police Juror Daniel Arvie said. “FEMA has special people to deal with this kind of thing -- just cemeteries.”
Due to a recommendation from the state’s Attorney General’s office, the Police Jury reached out to FEMA about obtaining aid to repair the cemetery. Arvie says FEMA officials will be coming out to the cemetery within the next two to three weeks to survey the enormity of the damage to determine how much aid is needed.
Arvie said the Jury is recommending to FEMA that Owens-Thomas Funeral Home handle anything dealing with placing loved ones back in coffins or into new coffins. Arvie also said that they will be asking FEMA to fund some construction to help prevent this kind of damage in the future.
“We are going to ask them if they will build a small wall across the back part of the cemetery near the gully,” Arvie said. “We may have to be forced to move some of the graves.”
Arvie said that a few families that were affected by the flooding were able to get money to fix their loved ones plots due to applying for funeral expenses through FEMA. Not everyone who has family members in the cemetery was able to do that.
In addition, the church which owns and controls the cemetery doesn’t have the funding to fix the cemetery itself, so the Police Jury has stepped in.
“This is out of our control because we don’t own the land so we are finding a way to help put everyone at peace,” District 8 Juror Ryan Williams said. “Hopefully we can get this squared away for the people who have loved ones in here. We have to do this for the family members sake.”