Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux spoke at a dedication ceremony on Oct. 7 for the Yellow Fever Memorial Monument at Oakland Cemetery.
Read his comments below:
Good afternoon and welcome!
I am pleased to greet Mr. Paul Strickland, President of the Oakland Cemetery Preservation Society, Pastor Bruce Carrol of the Antioch Baptist Church, and all distinguished clergy who are assembled. Before I say a few words, let me, again, thank Dr. Cheryl White for her work.
Dr. White, you and other members of the committee have done a remarkable job in planning events for this 150th year commemoration. The Yellow Fever Epidemic of Shreveport in 1873 ranks as the third worst recorded epidemic of its type in United States history.
It is good to see you and to share with you on this occasion, although the circumstances that brought us here were transformative for our city in its infancy—with approximately one-quarter of the population succumbing to the illness in just twelve weeks.
In all the chaos of that fall of 1873, by mid September, the Shreveport Times reported that the city cemetery could no longer keep up with the burials, and the city government authorized the opening of a single large trench on this site to entomb the victims – close to 800. We stand on the site today.
Until today, there was no permanent memorial to this event and certainly no fitting tribute to the memory of those buried together here. Today, we correct that historical oversight with this beautiful memorial, which gives name to the previously nameless and honors their lives.
The Yellow Fever mound can be thought of as a great equalizer. Here beneath this earth are black, white, Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, young, old, male, female. Buried together are those who lived as good citizens, some regarded as heroes for staying behind to care for the sick who wound up dying of yellow fever themselves, and probably some whose lives were not heroic.
Among those commemorated are five Catholic priests, who have been nominated for canonization. Another hero is U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Lt Eugene Augustus, an Ohio native. Woodruff and his men were ordered to leave Shreveport after a federal quarantine was put in place. Woodruff refused and wrote to his mother saying, I am not the least afraid. Today, we remember them all.
The tragedy of 1873 left the city reeling in its wake. Would it survive? All of us present here today can testify that it survived, it prospered. The city lives indeed!
We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, the labors of those who have perhaps been largely nameless in our public record – the shopkeepers, the dock workers, the telegraph operators, the newspaper men, the laborers, the religious sisters who came from East Texas to assist strangers and the innocent children whose lives had just begun in this young city.
This monument honors them all.
The names of major community donors, including the City of Shreveport, are inscribed on the obelisk. This beautiful commemoration has been two years in the planning and six months’ worth of building.
Soon an eternal flame will burn here so that we might never forget. May these souls rest in peace and in the knowledge that the future remembered them.
Thank you for coming, thank you for sharing, and thank you for the work you have done.
-Mayor Arceneaux