All Saints Day Brings French Families Together
While Americans spent the Halloween weekend dressing up and dishing out candy, families in France have a different tradition. On All Saints Day they gather at family graves, in a gesture of remembrance. The occasion is usually not somber and melancholy, but more a celebration of family ties.
RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
Eleanor Beardsley sends this postcard from a famous cemetery in Paris.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: Unidentified Woman #1: (Foreign language spoken)
BEARDSLEY: Lamia Scortte(ph) brought her eight-year-old son out to join his great- grandfather.
LAMIA SCORTTE: It's a special day for me because I am here with my son and his grand-grandfather to visit his grand-grandmother that died when he was two years old, trying to keep her alive in his mind.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRD CAWING)
BEARDSLEY: Some two million people a year come to visit their graves and admire the cemetery's stonework and sculptures while they stroll its magnificent three- lined lanes.
DARIA KOVALSKA: We are looking for Jim Morrison and Chopin, because we are Polish, and (unintelligible) because we are bankers(ph).
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
BEARDSLEY: London natives James Kingston(ph) and Roman Darcy(ph) say they have come to visit the final resting place of their countryman, Oscar Wilde.
JAMES KINGSTON: We've got Oscar Wilde, here. He (unintelligible) his activities and...
ROMAN DARCY: And London.
KINGSTON: ...back in our hometown.
DARCY: Unidentified Man: (French spoken)
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
BEARDSLEY: An exuberant tour guide has brought his group to singer Edith Piaf's grave. Septuagenarians Michelle(ph) and Martine D'angelo(ph) are also there. D'angelo says the couple always pays tribute to their favorite singers after she visits her brother's grave. She reels off a list of names.
MARTINE D: (French spoken)
BEARDSLEY: For NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.
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