Day of the Dead

During my Catholic girlhood, we always attended Mass on All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation, praying for our deceased family. While we honored them, we did not celebrate them.

It was only many years later, on a photography workshop in San Miguel d'Allende that I experienced the outpouring of love and rejoicing that Mexican families bring to la Dia de los Muertos. They sing and dance, they eat and drink, they decorate the graves of their loved ones with marigolds. Marigolds, hundreds of marigolds — flor de cempasuchil in Nauhatl — spread across the cemeteries.

While I will not be celebrating this year, I did find marigolds to place by the portraits of my departed loved ones. Should I change my mind, I know my way around the cemeteries here in Santa Fe as I spent several months a year ago photographing them. In honor of the Day of the Dead, I offer you a tour.

Gennaro '“John” Pop Digneo, Rosario Cemetery

Religious Brother and Sisters, Rosario Cemetery

Infant Grave, Rosario Cemetery

Eliza Wilcox, Fairview Cemetery

Marina C. Romero, Our Lady of Guadalupe Cemetery

U. Ortiz, Cristo Rey Cemetery

Unknown, Oddfellows Cemetery

 

 

place, cultureNancy Eganday of the dead, dia de los muertos, cemeteries, Santa Fe, Rosario Cemetery, Fairview Cemetery, Cristo Rey Cemetery, Oddfellows Cemetery, Out Lady of Guadalupe Cemetery, marigolds, flor de cempasuchil, All Saints Day, San Miguel d'Allenda, Mexico, Sant Fe Workshops2 Comments