For the past 51 years, a group of unknown women wearing identical black veils and dresses, concealing their identities have arrived at the Church Street Graveyard, weeping and wailing over the loss of their beloved Joe Cain.

Michael Volpicelli of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has watched the spectacle up close each year for the past 30 years. The Merry Widows of Joe Cain are his favorites, and he wants to make sure he has a prime viewing spot against the cemetery gate.

“Everyone gets along has a really good time,” said Volpicelli. Volpicelli travels to New Orleans each year for Mardi Gras but drives north to Mobile, the self-proclaimed ‘Birthplace of Mardi Gras,’ rather than staying in the Big Easy to celebrate.

“I love them,” he said. “I always get my beads.”

The Widows and their over-the-top theatrics are the typical kickoff to Joe Cain Day, among the more popular days of the Carnival season that typically draws massive crowds to downtown Mobile. On Sunday, under sun-soaked skies and comfortable early March temperatures, the large crowds began the day descending on the Church Street Graveyard to witness the Widows in action.

“I just love watching the Widows as they walk down and mourn over the graves, and then to watch my daughter and her friend reach through the gates to get beads from them,” said Amanda Humfrees of Bay St. Louis, Miss., who was with her daughter, 9-year-old Jaycie Kreeger.

The Merry Widows of Joe Cain – which includes a group of women with made-up traditional Southern names like Savannah, Emmy Lou, Isabelle, and Josie Cain — arrive in a charter bus after 11 a.m. on Joe Cain Day to participate in their annual schtick. They’ve been visiting the graveyard since 1974.

The Widows are escorted into the cemetery during a solemn stroll to pay their respects to Cain, who died in 1904 and who is considered the man whose antics led to the revitalization of Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile after the Civil War.

The Widows also pay respects at the grave marker of Julian “Judy” Rayford, the late historian and folklorist whose efforts in the 1960s led to getting Cain’s body disinterred from a cemetery in Bayou La Batre and relocated to the Mobile graveyard in 1966. The first Joe Cain Day Procession occurred in 1966, largely because of Rayford’s efforts in getting Cain reburied in Mobile and have his story embellished for all time.

The Widows are all anonymous, dressed in black gowns and hats, and their faces shielded by black veils. Their identities, since 1974, have been completely unknown.

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After weeping over the loss of Cain, the Widows will then bicker over whom Joe loved the most. The irony is that Cain only had one wife his entire life, the late Elizabeth Rabby Cain, who is buried alongside her husband at the Church Street Graveyard.

The Widows pay no attention to the Joe Cain’s biography. They are out for themselves until the mood turns form somber to celebratory.

The Widows then begin their dance as they frolic toward the brick wall that lines the cemetery, tossing black beads and flowers to onlookers.

Immediately afterward, the Widows will board back onto the bus for a quick drive to the Oakleigh Garden District to Cain’s house on 906 Augusta St, where hundreds of onlookers will join the Widows for a toast.

The moment then leads the Widows to the start of the Joe Cain Day Procession, the highlight of the afternoon.

The procession features two distinct groups – the Foot Marchers and the Joe Cain Parading Society. The Footmarcher is an eclectic mix of participants, both old and new, featuring groups like the Wild Mauvillians, Mystic Squirrels of Bienville, the Order of Bums, Skeleton Krewe, and more.

The Slacabamarinico character remains the oldest and most central part of Joe Cain Day, first portrayed by Rayford. The character has been portrayed by historian Wayne Dean since 1985.

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The entire day is the creative product of Rayford, whose 1962 retelling of Mardi Gras in ‘Chasin’ the Devil Round a Stump’ was aimed at getting Cain memorialized in Mobile. It has long been a community-wide festivity featuring tailgates and street parties and has, for decades, been the antithesis to the mystic societies and private, invite-only Carnival balls that are a staple of the city’s annual Carnival.