News - Local

Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009

Cemetery tours offer history, not chills

A cemetery at Halloween isn’t frightful, it’s delightful in three Coast communities this week.

“Put some authenticity into your Halloween experience this year,” the organizers of Historic Cemetery Tours said. Re-enactors will dress the part and portray the people who are buried there.

“It’s not scary at all, It’s an educational experience,” said Liz Ford, a Pascagoula historian. “They’re real characters.”

All three cemetery tours will feature some of the most eccentric and unusual people whose graves are marked with eclectic tombstones — or not marked at all.

In Bay St, Louis, the eight re-enactors will include one of the orphan train children and a gypsy queen.

In gypsy tradition, her grave isn’t marked but Eddie Coleman with the Hancock County Historical Society said through records and lore, “We know she’s there.”

The tours are free, although a donation jar will be placed at each cemetery to help with upkeep.

Old Biloxi Cemetery Tour

Tuesday, 5:30-7:30 p.m., U.S. 90.

The cemetery is just west of the Biloxi Lighthouse. Park behind the Elks Lodge, which is immediately west of the cemetery. This is the third annual Old Biloxi Cemetery Tour.

“We’re having a theme this year,” said Laurie Rosetti, who helped coordinate the actors and write the scripts. The committee wanders through the older part of the cemetery, looking for the gravestones in the best condition and most accessible.

“Hey, these are all streets,” the committee members realized as they chose Benachi, Seal, Reynoir, Caillavet and Delauney among the characters who will be portrayed this year.

French-born John Delauney built the Creole Cottage and several other vacation cottages in Biloxi.

“He was like the first tourism director,” Rosetti said.

Nicholas Marino Benachi, for whom Benachi Avenue is named, is buried in New Orleans. His story will be told by his son, Anthony Nicholas Benachi, who was an active yachtsman at the Biloxi Yacht Club.

“Their summer home was here on the beach,” Rosetti said. Benachi was their driveway, and they planted the Avenue of the Oaks, which neighbors still decorate for Halloween.

A cotton merchant from Greece, Benachi started the first Greek Orthodox Church in the country in New Orleans, Rosetti said.

The Beau Rivage Resort and Casino will provide refreshments at the end of the tour.

Krebs Cemetery Tour