We were in Switzerland a couple of years ago and our tour guide took us to the cemetery that appeared in the Sound of Music. The story took place in Austria but was filmed in Switzerland. It was the cemetery where the Family hid behind the gravestones to keep from being detected by the Germans who were looking for them. It also had the wrought iron fence in front of it and was connected to the Abbey at the back. It is really much smaller than it appeared in the movie. However, my point is that we were told that the plots there are actually rented by families to bury their dead, often one on top of the other and when the last member of the family dies it is rented to someone else. The history in these European countries goes back so far that they have run out of room to bury the dead side by side. When we were in New Orleans sometime back, they had a similar system with a compartment where the older bones were swept to the back and the recently deceased placed in the grave until the next death happens and the process is repeated. They had problems with the water table being so close to the surface that sometimes the caskets started popping to the top and floating around. Don't ask about the cement type vault most of us use, I don't know but with the flooding of New Orleans lately, I imagine they have a real problem. Don't give me a hard time about this Nel. This actually happened and still does. We are fortunate in this country to have the room to bury our dead so far. When land becomes too valuable and is needed for other purposes, we too will have choices to make about our cemeteries. Shirley Hatcher Ross

HATCHER website: http://hatcherfamilyassn.com HALL DNA project: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~nhatcher/hall/HDNAtest.htm "One of the tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts" - La Rochefoucauld Shirley, I wouldn't dream of giving you a hard time about this :-) While I can't comment one way or the other about European cemeteries, you are perfectly correct about New Orleans and other low level areas of LA. I understand that most new NO burials are now above ground. But there are still the older below ground burials and newer ones on land that is high enough not to expect to flood. But I remember seeing pics after either Katrina or the following hurricane of caskets uprooted and scattered over acres and acres of land. For the families involved, that has to be an emotionally difficult ordeal to go thru. Nel