Photograph by Stephanie Eley
When Rex Rytter, King of Cats, passed away peacefully at the ripe old age of 16, his human, Chantelle Rytter, decided to honor him with a funeral. But this would be no ordinary funeral, because Rytter was no ordinary cat mom: She is the founder of Atlanta’s Lantern Parade series, those magical nighttime spectacles of handmade glowing puppets.
“I had made a puppet of Rex a few years earlier that was in several parades,” says Rytter. “He had a little kitty fan club. So when he passed [in 2021], we invited the neighborhood out for a jazz funeral.”
Rytter had recently moved to Adair Park and was thinking about relocating the original Lantern Parade, held every May, to the westside Beltline from the eastside where things were getting a bit crowded. She wanted to make sure her new neighbors were amenable to hosting the event, which routinely draws crowds of 15,000 or more.
Rex’s funeral proved a good test case. “They really liked it,” says Rytter. “We made a little all-cats altar, and people filled it up with the sweetest kitty pictures.” Ahead of the funeral, Rytter applied for an ELEVATE public art grant from the City of Atlanta to host a puppet-making workshop (Rex template, optional) along with the parade. To her delight, the city approved it. “How cool that our city’s art program would go for a jazz funeral for a cat,” she says. “I love it!”
Rex’s ceremony was inspired by the New Orleans funeral tradition of the second line, during which mourning friends and family are accompanied on their walk to the cemetery by a brass band, followed by members of the community. Rytter credits the Crescent City, where she spent a decade, for her love of parades, which over the years has bloomed into a full-blown career. Her Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons now hosts seven annual events.
“Parades are where a community sees itself,” says Rytter, whose Beltline Lantern Parade celebrates 15 years this May. “We like each other better when we see each other in our playfulness. It just does a body good.”
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This article appears in our February 2025 issue.
