Someone to Watch Over Me*: The Practice of Altar-Making in the Mississippi Gulfcoast: The Koerner Family's 40 year Tradition

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It is was 1968 and Pasty and Clyde Koerner watched as their only son, Clyde Jr. set off to fight in Vietnam as a new Marine. Patsy prayed for his protection and turned to that protector of families, St. Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus and husband of Mary. The Koerners are an Italian-German family residing in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and have constructed altars to the Catholic saint, St. Joseph, annually since 1968. Patsy’s granddaughter Renee, jokingly told me that in the Bay, the Koerner family is known for two things: its’ “bad boys” and their annual altars!

Each year, the family begins its extensive food preparations in February and then opens the altar for public viewing on the annual feast day of St. Joseph which is March 19. By advertising in the local newspaper, they invite the public to submit petitions, view the altar, give a donation to charity, and leave with the important fava (i.e., “lucky”) bean that symbolizes protection against bare cupboards. Attendees also receive a piece of blessed bread which was used in the past by Gulf Coast families for protection from storms.

Situated in Hancock County, in the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area, Bay St. Louis, a city on the Gulf coast, was at the epi-center of Hurricane Katrina in August, 2005. In 2000, the population of the city approximated 8000. Katrina destroyed the majority of the town’s homes and the city infrastructure, resulting in the displacement of over 3000 residents.

For centuries, the city’s residents, like the Koerner’s depended on the sea for their livelihood. Catholic residents mediated the annual threats from the terrible storms through their religious practices. For the Italian Catholics of Sicilian descent, appealing to St. Joseph stems from the legend that their ancestors were delivered from famine through his intervention. In gratitude their Italian ancestors began setting the “table” or “altar” to St. Joseph, consisting of “food,” their ancestors’ most important possession. Overtime, the table setting ritual in churches and in private homes continued and expanded to include thanksgiving for deliverance from job loss, health crises, survival and recovery from natural disasters, and for the granting of various favors.

The field of trauma research supports the use of ritual for healing and recovery from disaster-situations that can lead to posttraumatic stress disorder by creating a separate space away from normal everyday life to mark the traumatic event; by providing an experiential opportunity to elicit memories and feelings that may be inaccessible to consciousness, and by assisting the process through which personal and collective relationships to the changed life-conditions after the disaster are transformed and normalized.

Though conducted within the homes or specific Churches, the public is invited to attend the altar viewings and meals through advertisements in the local newspapers. The occasion then is shared with the extant community, and as such provides a means to experience the presence of some “shared communal protection” from harm.
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Tell me where's the shepherd for this lost lamb

There's a somebody I'm longing to see
I hope that he turns out to be
Someone to watch over me

I'm a little lamb who's lost in a wood
I know I could always be good

To one who'll watch over me

*George Gershwin - Someone To Watch Over Me Lyrics Album: Gershwin Jazz 'Round Midnight

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ST. JOSEPH CATHOLIC CHURCH, Moss Point, MS

Click on the image below to see one of the most beautiful altars imaginable!

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The copyright of the article Someone to Watch Over Me: The Practice of Altar-Making in the Mississippi Gulfcoast: The Koerner Family's 40 year Tradition in “City of Spirits:” Psychoanalysis and South Culture on the T-BIPS blog is owned by Kim Vaz. Permission to republish Someone to Watch Over Me: The Practice of Altar-Making in the Mississippi Gulfcoast: The Koerner Family's 40 year Tradition in print or online must be granted by the author in writing. Contact Kim Vaz at kimmvaz@gmail.com.