Mount Olivet Cemetery: The Multicultural Resting Place of Gentilly

Mount Olivet Cemetery: The Multicultural Resting Place of Gentilly

Mount Olivet Cemetery in Gentilly is one of the most culturally diverse burial grounds in New Orleans. Established in 1918, it is younger than the grand historic cemeteries along Canal Boulevard, but what it lacks in age it makes up for in the remarkable range of communities it serves. African-American, Creole, Middle Eastern, and immigrant families from across the globe have found their final resting place at Mount Olivet, making it a cemetery that looks like New Orleans itself—a mosaic of cultures and traditions gathered in a single place.

History

Mount Olivet was established as a for-profit cemetery in 1918, during a period when New Orleans was growing rapidly and needed new burial space beyond the crowded cemeteries near the French Quarter and Canal Street. The Gentilly location offered room for expansion on relatively high ground. Unlike many of the older cemeteries, which were tied to specific religious denominations or ethnic groups, Mount Olivet was open to all comers. This openness attracted a remarkably diverse clientele, including many African-American and Creole families who had been underserved by the existing cemetery system.

Cultural Diversity

Walking through Mount Olivet is a lesson in the multicultural reality of New Orleans. The cemetery contains sections with Arabic inscriptions alongside tombs decorated with Catholic saints. African-American family plots sit near Creole crypts. The variety of funerary traditions on display—from simple in-ground burials to elaborate above-ground tombs—reflects the different cultural backgrounds of the families buried here. The cemetery also contains three Civil War veteran graves, a surprising find in a cemetery established more than fifty years after the war ended, likely representing veterans who were reinterred from other locations.

Notable Features

Mount Olivet is currently operated by Service Corporation International, the largest funeral services company in North America. While this corporate ownership has ensured a level of maintenance that many of the older, archdiocese-managed cemeteries lack, it has also introduced a more standardized, less character-rich approach to the grounds. Still, the older sections of Mount Olivet retain a distinctly New Orleans feel—the above-ground tombs, the live oaks, the personalized decorations that families add to their loved ones’ graves.

A Modern Cemetery with Old-World Roots

Mount Olivet may not have the gothic drama of St. Louis No. 1 or the architectural grandeur of Metairie, but it represents something equally important about New Orleans: the city’s ongoing ability to absorb and accommodate new communities. In a city where the historic cemeteries tell the story of the French, Spanish, Irish, German, and Creole past, Mount Olivet tells the story of the twentieth and twenty-first century—a city still welcoming new arrivals, still making room, still burying its dead with whatever traditions they bring with them.