Fr. Felix Varela in Cuba

Another sighting of Fr Felix Varela was reported by TCPA member Nick McAuliffe, who came across this Cuban stamp somewhere in his internet wanderings.



Fr. Varela was born in Cuba but spent his childhood in St. Augustine, leaving for Cuba at the age of 16 to begin studies for the priesthood.  The Seminario San Carlos was the seminary where Fr. Varela studied, was ordained and taught before leaving for the Spain to take his position in the Spanish Cortes [Legislature] in 1821.  As we all know, things didn’t work out once he got to Spain, and it was from Spain that he went to the US.  He never lived in Cuba again, although he maintained his interest in Cuban political thought and in Cuban independence.  He was finally repatriated, in a sense, when his bones were returned to Cuba in 1911; his remains are now buried where he once taught.

Another Opening…

Today was the 3rd Saturday of the month, so of course Tolomato Cemetery was open.  The weather was awful – hot, muggy, and obviously the favorite weather of mosquitos and gnats, who were out in annoying clouds. 

I thought we were going to have a slow day but I had underestimated the resilience of St Augustine visitors and locals, and we ended up with a total of 320 people who entered our gates. Most of them did the self-guided tours and many of them opted for the guided tours and seemed quite interested. 

Nick McAuliffe had set out the historical photos he used in his June 29th presentation, so visitors could look at “then and now” photos at the very locations from which the photos were taken.

And perhaps we owed our success to a new addition: an 8 ft. banner hanging on the fence announcing “Tolomato Cemetery Open Today FREE!”  Few things are free for tourists in St Augustine, so how could they resist?

Cemetery Buffs

Last week I was interviewed about Tolomato Cemetery on a local radio station, WFOY, and one of the hosts mentioned that he was surprised to learn of the existence of people whose hobby is visiting cemeteries.   Judging by the websites and newsletters I have found, he’d really be surprised if he knew how many of these people there are out there, roaming the graveyards of this country and any other place they visit.

Tolomato is a tiny cemetery so we don’t get many cemetery buffs, as they are called, although this may change as word gets out that we are now open on a regular basis (3rd Saturday of every month).

In any case, to give you an idea of the potential, one of our members was trolling through cemetery websites and found “The Cemetery Club,” a website run by Illinois author and cemetery expert Minda Powers-Douglas. The website (click on the link above) has great information and is also the gateway to Epitaphs Magazine Online (EMO), a really excellent on-line journal that contains articles on a wide variety of cemetery related topics.  The magazine is also available from lulu.com in print format.

If you have always wondered about the painted skulls of Austria, go to the current edition of EMO and find out everything you need to know.  For those who have been dreaming of having their skulls painted, the practice was halted a number of years ago because of superstitions that grew up around the skulls, such as the idea that skulls could predict the winning lottery numbers!

Our First Membership Event

The Tolomato Cemetery Preservation Association has been in existence for somewhat under a year, and we already have a goodly number of members and volunteers.  So we thought it was time to host a special event at Tolomato Cemetery just for members and their guests.
Yesterday, June 29, was the day!  Unfortunately, it was also a day full of drenching rains and the occasional thunderstorm, most of them right at the time that the members were supposed to start arriving at the cemetery.
So attendance wasn’t what we had hoped, but those who came out despite the rain got a real historical treat, with talks about the cemetery and even an 18th century soldier (also known as John Cipriani) standing by. 
Nick McAuliffe presented a talk on Tolomato Then and Now, using historic photographs, mostly from the late 19th century (around 1880) to contrast how Tolomato had looked in the days when it was a forest of wooden crosses and grave enclosures, and how it looks now.  Locating the photos at the points from which they had been taken, he pointed out the changes, the lost markers, and the additions that had occurred over the 130+ years since the photos were taken.
Here we see Nick giving his talk while our 18th century solider and Louise Kennedy watch from under a nice comfy umbrella.  Incidentally, the rain did taper off, and most of the rest of the evening was a little damp and drippy under the trees, but very cool and pleasant.

Elizabeth Gessner gave a presentation on her translation of the 1811 cemetery plan (below) created by the Spanish authorities, probably in cooperation with Fr Miguel O’Reilly, the pastor of the parish at that time.   This plan was never carried out (1811/12 was not a good year for the Spanish!), but shows an elaborate design for a new cemetery on or just behind the site of the current Tolomato Cemetery.  Dr. Jim Cusick, who attended the event, is going to search for more information on the  map and thinks he may be able to determine the engineer who created it.

Finally, Matt Armstrong talked about our preservation activities, both past and planned for the future.  This included whipping out a bottle of D/2, the magic headstone cleaner, from under his jacket. He got the group so enthusiastic about it that Priscilla de la Cruz was able to collect the names of a long list of people who want to hear about the next preservation workday.

Louise Kennedy just sent me the following photo of the three speakers (Nick, Elizabeth and Matt) standing around our resident harpist, Mary Jane Ballou.

So while the rain cut down on attendance, the event was great, and Sue Howden, Carol Lopez Bradshaw, Louise Kennedy and Moises Stzylerman made the brave guests feel welcome, while Mary Jane Ballou played the harp on the porch of the Varela Chapel to distract them from their slight sogginess.

Latrell Mickler–Telling the Story

We had a pleasant surprise at Tolomato Cemetery yesterday when TCPA member Natalie Lucas brought Latrell Pappy Mickler to visit the cemetery.  Latrell Mickler has written an excellent, story-rich book on her Minorcan ancestors, focusing particularly on the Papy and Pons families and their descendants.

She spent many years researching it, poring over records in the archives in St Augustine as well as personally interviewing other Minorcan descendants and finding records elsewhere. The result is a large book with factual accounts, some quite detailed, of the lives and deaths of many of the people buried at Tolomato Cemetery.

One particularly sad story concerns a vault that we worked on restoring this spring, the Oliveros-Papy vault (both, of course, families to whom Latrell Mickler is related). 

One of the stones we cleaned was this pretty stone bearing the name “Nena” and a spray of roses, as well as the information that Nena was only 16 when she died.

 

And as sad as the death of any young person is, her story was even more tragic.  Latrell told us the details: when Nena Papy was 16, she was accidentally shot and killed by her younger brother, 12 years old at the time. The killing, reported in the press, devastated the family and probably contributed much to the later unhappy life of the brother.

There is an account of the event in Latrell Mickler’s book, along with many other stories that remind us of the real people buried under these historic stones and our need to treat the cemetery with respect and care.

Buried Ironwork Emerges

A few weeks ago when we were working on the Oliveros Papy vault at the back of the cemetery, we kept finding our work impeded by sharp pieces of iron that stuck out of the ground behind the vault.  We thought they were probably parts of a metal grave enclosure that had probably been removed from its grave because it was in poor condition and stashed behind the vault to await – well, something or another.

Since we are getting ready to install a storage shed behind the vault to hold our preservation supplies and other miscellaneous “stuff,” we decided that it was time to excavate. Nick McAuliffe, Matt Armstrong and Elizabeth Gessner appeared at Tolomato bright and early today and began to dig.

The pieces of metal seemed to go on forever.  Some of them were separate, but most of them were part of a larger piece that we realized was a fence section. It was close to the surface, only some 4-6 inches deep, and extended for about 5 or 6 feet in length and was about 3 feet wide. 

Digging diligently and snipping off the roots that were holding it down, we were finally able to lift it – and we saw a lovely piece of iron fencing that had major damage at one end, probably from a falling tree or branch that had hit it hard enough to curve the wrought iron.

What’s more, we were even able to identify the piece. It was the west side of the grave enclosure for two of the headstones that we cleaned earlier this spring. 

For the time being, we have put it aside under a tarp, and will consider whether to attempt to conserve it and reinstall it.  But it is actually in better condition than the piece that was left standing.  We don’t know how long it was buried. We found a piece of Styrofoam under it, so obviously it’s got to be fairly recent, or at least after the invention of Styrofoam! 

A New Bishop for St Augustine–and Tolomato.

 

The TCPA is delighted to welcome the new Bishop of St Augustine, Bishop Felipe Estévez, who in addition to everything else, will have Tolomato Cemetery under his care.

In this photo, Bishop Estévez arrives at the door of the Cathedral – which will now be his cathedral, where his cathedra (chair or seat) is located.  For those who have never seen this ceremony, the new bishop arrives at the closed doors and taps on them with a small silver hammer. The doors are then opened from the inside and the bishop is welcomed into his cathedral.

I wasn’t able to get a photo of the hammer or the bishop actually tapping on the door, unfortunately, but in this photo taken from the plaza during a brief gap in the traffic, you can see the bishop arriving.

At the door, Bp. Estévez quoted the words said by our founder and first governor, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, upon landing:

“My ultimate object and desire is to procure that Florida be settled in perpetuity so that the holy Gospel be extended and planted in these provinces.”