Star's Article from the Herald Tribune
09/02/2006 18:27
Katrina cleanup
volunteers bring help to 'quietest of all
victims'
The last thing my husband and I did in Phoenix, La., was to dig two graves for the human remains I found on the ground in the back of a cemetery destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Bones, burial items and the coffins that held them were scattered by the 12 feet of water left by the storm. Residents said that bodies, caskets and the above-ground "houses" that some inter their dead in were in the street, hundreds of feet from their graves, when the water level dropped two weeks after Katrina hit.
I went to the small town of Phoenix in June to help with the rebuilding and deliver donated supplies from Manatee County teachers.
I had plans to teach a summer camp to children. I cleaned up dead rats, distributed goods, cleaned yards, picked up debris, discussed race relations and food preparation. I learned about people and a town I never knew existed before May. When I left them, I vowed to return with help.
I brought my brother to do his carpentry during my second trip in early July. He lives in Mississippi and remembers my calling and begging him to leave his trailer as Katrina loomed in the forecast. He had only a weekend to give to Phoenix, but he gave all he could of his skills while there.
My 20-year-old "little bear," now over 6 feet tall, taught me how to seal the floors in the only church offering services on the lower East Bank of the Mississippi River.
He built a wall, installed a door and taught me how to keep bugs and heat out of the only air-conditioned, restored building within 50 miles of the town.
My husband, Robert, appreciated that work when he arrived in a rental car full of books and supplies from Manatee County, meeting me in Mississippi on my third trip to Phoenix. After seeing photos from my earlier journeys, he came to repair veterans' graves destroyed by the water.
Robert is third-generation military. His grandfather emigrated from Italy and invaded his homeland with American forces during the Sicilian campaign. With tears in his eyes, he said he couldn't imagine seeing the coffin of his mother or veteran brother lying on the ground, the way the residents of Phoenix had to see all of their kinfolk.
The residents asked Robert why he would want to work in the cemetery when he could be doing something more desirable. "There is no greater honor than to help those who have fought to protect America, even if it means fighting through the jungle that Katrina left behind," he said.
So there we were with the quietest of all victims.
The residents had done what they could to find all of their dead, and the state put the dead in concrete coffins after DNA testing was completed, and returned them in neat little rows.
As Robert fought spiders and mosquitoes around the debris-covered grave of a World War I veteran, I wandered away to see what work had just been done by a parish employee with a Bobcat machine near the concrete coffins.
The mandible was the first bone I found -- followed by a vertebra, then a tooth, several toe and finger bones, some congealed material, some hair. My training in anthropology was being used on something other than Florida fossils.
I carefully excavated each piece from the bits of material and metal that had been ground up by the Bobcat's tread. The man operating it had dumped an old coffin into the ditch, never checking to see if someone was inside. She was spread across 15 feet.
An 85-year-old woman showed up. She told me the bones were those of her cousin and had me bury them behind her destroyed grave. The next day I found a few more of her cousin's remains, and we put them with the others.
Across the cemetery, I found another set of bones, these much older. Robert and I laid them to rest as well.
I didn't teach this summer as I had first planned in May, but I don't have to ask why we were in Phoenix, La. Sometimes there is just other work to be done.
Is there anything you can do?
Starloe Galletta is the drama teacher at Rowlett Magnet Elementary School in Manatee County. She can be reached at weetinygi...@hotmail.com
The last thing my husband and I did in Phoenix, La., was to dig two graves for the human remains I found on the ground in the back of a cemetery destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Bones, burial items and the coffins that held them were scattered by the 12 feet of water left by the storm. Residents said that bodies, caskets and the above-ground "houses" that some inter their dead in were in the street, hundreds of feet from their graves, when the water level dropped two weeks after Katrina hit.
I went to the small town of Phoenix in June to help with the rebuilding and deliver donated supplies from Manatee County teachers.
I had plans to teach a summer camp to children. I cleaned up dead rats, distributed goods, cleaned yards, picked up debris, discussed race relations and food preparation. I learned about people and a town I never knew existed before May. When I left them, I vowed to return with help.
I brought my brother to do his carpentry during my second trip in early July. He lives in Mississippi and remembers my calling and begging him to leave his trailer as Katrina loomed in the forecast. He had only a weekend to give to Phoenix, but he gave all he could of his skills while there.
My 20-year-old "little bear," now over 6 feet tall, taught me how to seal the floors in the only church offering services on the lower East Bank of the Mississippi River.
He built a wall, installed a door and taught me how to keep bugs and heat out of the only air-conditioned, restored building within 50 miles of the town.
My husband, Robert, appreciated that work when he arrived in a rental car full of books and supplies from Manatee County, meeting me in Mississippi on my third trip to Phoenix. After seeing photos from my earlier journeys, he came to repair veterans' graves destroyed by the water.
Robert is third-generation military. His grandfather emigrated from Italy and invaded his homeland with American forces during the Sicilian campaign. With tears in his eyes, he said he couldn't imagine seeing the coffin of his mother or veteran brother lying on the ground, the way the residents of Phoenix had to see all of their kinfolk.
The residents asked Robert why he would want to work in the cemetery when he could be doing something more desirable. "There is no greater honor than to help those who have fought to protect America, even if it means fighting through the jungle that Katrina left behind," he said.
So there we were with the quietest of all victims.
The residents had done what they could to find all of their dead, and the state put the dead in concrete coffins after DNA testing was completed, and returned them in neat little rows.
As Robert fought spiders and mosquitoes around the debris-covered grave of a World War I veteran, I wandered away to see what work had just been done by a parish employee with a Bobcat machine near the concrete coffins.
The mandible was the first bone I found -- followed by a vertebra, then a tooth, several toe and finger bones, some congealed material, some hair. My training in anthropology was being used on something other than Florida fossils.
I carefully excavated each piece from the bits of material and metal that had been ground up by the Bobcat's tread. The man operating it had dumped an old coffin into the ditch, never checking to see if someone was inside. She was spread across 15 feet.
An 85-year-old woman showed up. She told me the bones were those of her cousin and had me bury them behind her destroyed grave. The next day I found a few more of her cousin's remains, and we put them with the others.
Across the cemetery, I found another set of bones, these much older. Robert and I laid them to rest as well.
I didn't teach this summer as I had first planned in May, but I don't have to ask why we were in Phoenix, La. Sometimes there is just other work to be done.
Is there anything you can do?
Starloe Galletta is the drama teacher at Rowlett Magnet Elementary School in Manatee County. She can be reached at weetinygi...@hotmail.com