KPLC News Story | Chloe Cemetery

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By Devin Cruice. Published: May 7, 2026 at 7:43 PM CDT

CHLOE, La. (KPLC) - Bones lay at the mercy of the elements inside a cracked, open tomb. Overgrowth swallows headstones. Fallen trees crush what little remains of a fence that once marked sacred ground.

This is the St. Mary’s Cemetery in Chloe, Louisiana, and most people don’t even know it exists.

Shane Manuel has lived next to this cemetery since 1980. As a child, he played here. He hunted squirrels and rabbits through these woods. His stepfather taught him to respect the graves beneath his feet.

A body lays exposed to the elements after years of neglect at the St. Mary's Cemetery

He has watched this place decline for decades — but nothing prepared him for what it looks like now.

“No, I’ve never seen it this bad,” Manuel said. “Since the hurricane, it’s just got worse and worse.”

Hurricane Rita hit first in 2005. Then, more than a decade later, came Laura in 2020. Each storm pushed the cemetery further into the wilderness. Families who had come to clear the land stopped coming. The woods moved in.

“Since Laura, nobody’s touched it — six years,” Manuel said.

Terry a. O’Neal -Hogan didn’t grow up next door. She flew in from California, but her family is buried here, somewhere.

Three tombs sit dirty from years of overgrowth and fallen leaves in the Chloe Cemetery

O’Neal-Hogan has spent the last two and a half decades tracing her lineage, piecing together census records, homestead patents, and DNA results. Two years ago, her research led her to this cemetery, referred to as both the Chloe Cemetery and the St. Mary’s Cemetery. In February of this year, she finally came to see it in person.

“When I came here to visit for the first time and seen this in person, I was heartbroken,” O’Neal-Hogan said. “I really was — to know that my great-grandmother is buried here and I have no idea where to find her.”

She has since filed for cemetery stewardship and founded the Chloe African American Cemetery Preservation Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a singular mission.

“Our goal here is to restore, preserve, and document, because this is a historical landmark,” she said.

The cemetery is a race against time. The more nature reclaims it, the more history disappears with it.

“The more it’s overgrown, the quieter it gets, the more muted it gets,” O’Neal-Hogan said. “And we don’t learn about the voices.”

A tree sits propped up on an unidentifiable tomb in the Chloe Cemetery

A few names have survived. During a recent walkthrough, one volunteer paused at a partially visible headstone and read aloud,

“Hazel Hoffpauir. She was born February 18th, 1911. She died December 5th, 1927.”

She was 16 years old.

Headstone found in St. Mary's Cemetery covered in leaves and moss

Some of those buried here do have headstones. Others, like O’Neill-Hogan’s own ancestors, are unmarked, their locations unknown, their stories buried beneath decades of growth.

“My third great-grandfather was the last living slave of Maj. JC LeBleu. We know the history and the founding, the folks who founded this area, this parish. And my family was a part of that, is a part of that legacy.” O’Neill-Hogan said.

This is not just an African American cemetery. It is a Creole cemetery, being reclaimed by Mother Nature.

Families of Native American, Cajun, French, Spanish, and African descent are buried side by side in these woods. The Millers, the St. Marys, the Tillmans, the Alphonses, the LeBleus, and many more whose names have yet to be recovered.

The tomb of Joseph and Deliah St. Mary sits buried below a recently cleared thicket and dirt.

Jed Duhon, Tribal Chairman of the Attakapas Eagle Tribe, came out to help. He has no direct descendants buried here, but he understands what is at stake.

“Looking at this makes me think what’s going to happen to my graveyard in four or five generations when the younger ones don’t have any idea where we are,” Duhon said.

Restoring this cemetery will not be simple. O’Neal-Hogan says the work must be done carefully, by hand, with intention. Heavy equipment cannot be brought in. There may be unmarked graves beneath every step.

“We need archaeologists to help us identify where the bodies are,” she said. “We have to get some ground-penetrating scanners.”

The nonprofit has little to no funding yet, but that is not stopping O’Neal-Hogan.

“I have felt like I’ve been pulled here, like I’ve been called to do this,” she said. “I tend to move in the direction where I feel like I’m pulled.”

And she is not alone.

“I think it’s going to be something beautiful one day, and I hope people come together and see this. Let’s do it. Let’s make it happen,” Manuel said.

O’Neal-Hogan and other volunteers plan to be out clearing Saturday morning (May 9), weather permitting.

To find out if they will be there and how you can help, visit their website HERE.