New Orleans. Offerings, or ex votos, are left there for St. Roch, the patron saint of healing. Plaster body parts, prosthetics, crutches, “thanks” stones and other trinkets are everywhere. The cemetery was created in 1874 after an outbreak of yellow fever that killed thousands in New Orleans. “The then pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Father Peter Leonard Thevis, is said to have prayed to St. Roch for his congregation to be spared, and when they were, he kept his promise to build a Chapel to the 14th-century saint. “