Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans

The Flaming Tomb

The Flaming Tomb They say that heart responds to heart. And there is a tomb in Metairie Cemetery which responded to its mother-tomb in faraway Germany. Even now 'tis said that it pulses and glows like a living thing, although it is only an empty shell with grass growing thick and rank around it. Visitors to the cemetery circle close, having heard of the woman who guards it, and of the methods she employs in order to attain the greatest possible degree of efficiency. In 1911, Josie Deubler built the tomb of pink granite, and it cost her seventeen thousand dollars. The beautiful pink granite came from a Connecticut quarry which is now abandoned. The tomb itself is tall and stately, being set upon a grassy mound which elevates it considerably above its fellows. Mrs. Deubler built it for herself, cherishing a fancy that it symbolized the entrance to a heavenly home—the generous bronze doors, each with its friendly knocker, and the whole surmounted by two pink marble urns with carved pink marble flames rising from them, the broad threshold, and the shrubbery clustered about it. But there was more than this: it was a perfect replica of the family tomb in Germany. There are those who say that Mrs. Deubler selected the lot in the midst of Metairie with almost fanatical care; that she supervised the plans to the last minute detail; and that she stood so close to the workmen while they were erecting it that more than once they had to ask her to move aside. 192 (1907-27) The Flaming Tomb 193 Constantly she carried in her mind a picture of the tomb in Germany. She compared every block, every angle, and found it good. She watched the two great pink urns set into place high above her head. "They will light my way," she said. The two heavy bronze doors with their knockers—"The gates that will let me into Paradise," she smiled. And then came the bronze statue of a woman, life size, which was to stand before the entrance. The bronze woman was taller than Mrs. Deubler—her arms outstretched as though to open the door. Did she symbolize to Mrs. Deubler, in some unutterable way, the mystic ka, ba and khaibit of ancient Egypt? Or did she take unto herself those strange and mystic qualities afterwards, reveling in her half-world, her quasi existence ? For certain it is that through this inexplicable figure flowed the current which brought puzzlement alike to private individuals and the public which came to gape and gasp and flee away in unreasoning terror. When the tomb was first finished, its beauty and its unusual design attracted a steady stream of sight-seers. Mrs. Deubler wrote to her relatives in Germany that it was completed and appeared to be perfect. Perhaps that established the strange bond, for immediately rumors began to circulate that the tomb, aside from its architecture, was different from the rest of those in Metairie. One of the sextons noticed it first. It glowed, he reported, like heavy rose-colored glass with a light inside. Then another sexton, waiting until darkness fell, witnessed a curious phenomenon : the pink carved flames rising from the surmounting marble urns were joined by flaring tongues of bright fire, which mingled and rose like watch-fires in the evening air. And not this alone, although it would have been startling enough. The bronze woman, the second sexton declared, leaned over and grasped the handle of one of the knockers, wielding it until the whole place resounded with the clamor. He turned and ran, the awful din ringing in his ears until he had outdistanced it. Even then, his imagination still caught the echoes creeping through the graveyard greenery after him. "She moved!" he shuddered to his companion at the outer gate. "That bronze woman moved, I tell you! She had holt of 194 Ghost Stones of Old New Orleans the knocker, plain as day, and she was bangin' away like Billy-hell!" But these reports failed to disturb Mrs. Deubler's peace of mind. She smiled complacently, and planted more shrubbery and rosebushes around the pink tomb. She patted the bronze woman knowingly, smoothing her hard draperies and nodding understandingly. "Ich liebe dich!" she whispered to the bronze doors. "You will keep me safe where I shall be going one day." So she died, and her...