This interactive workshop covers cemetery preservation basics, including cleaning and documenting burial sites. It will address monument care, transcriptions, and when to seek professional help. The workshop will also explore cemetery record research and broader stewardship topics, such as supporting long-term preservation, caring for abandoned cemeteries, and community involvement.
About the Speaker: Emily Ford is a cemetery preservationist, monumental mason, writer of New Orleans cemetery history, and owner of Oak and Laurel Cemetery Preservation, LLC. She has worked in New Orleans cemeteries since 2011 and wrote her graduate thesis on historic craft in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Ms. Ford’s work focuses on empowering cemetery stakeholders in the care and preservation of their heritage and property. She has performed hundreds of tomb, monument, and statuary restorations throughout the American southeast including in Savannah, Pensacola, Natchez, Mobile, and New Orleans.
As Cemeteries Superintendent for the City of New Orleans from 2019 to 2024, she served hundreds of families in locating burial places, re-uniting with cemetery property, and connecting with cultural heritage. In addition to Oak and Laurel she currently works as a senior architectural historian at Chronicle Heritage, a national cultural resource management firm, leading the organization’s fledgling cemetery division.
In addition to professional pursuits, Ms. Ford is a charter member and secretary of the first Odd Fellows lodge (Crescent City No. 73) in recent New Orleans’ history. Originally from Sanford, Florida, by way of Chicago, Illinois, she has been a resident of Irish Channel for ten years.
Register here:
https://msje.org/event/get-to-know-your-jewish-cemetery/
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