Category: Green Funerals
[Prairie Home natural cemetery manager David Brenner of Waukesha Wisconsin has a good article in here about transitioning his cemetery to natural burial - ed] About 2 years ago, I was reading various environmental articles about such things as carbon…
When I first ventured into the green burial underground more than half a decade ago, I had to travel far afield from my home in eastern Pennsylvania to gather the material that would become Grave Matters.
When it came to natural return, not much was cooking here at the time (besides the very real bake taking place in the hearths at Philadelphia Crematories, a model crematory I ended up profiling in chapter three).
Since then, a green sea change has colored funeral and burial customs in this part of the Keystone State, with most of it coming in the last couple of months. Here’s what’s happening in:
Pocono Mountains
Last week I drove up to the Poconos and walked the grounds of Pocono Plateau (pictured above). It’s one of three ashes-only EcoEternity Forests I blogged about a couple of months ago. On a chilly afternoon, I caught up with president Jack Lowe, who talked about how families had approached him with such enthusiasm because they’d been holding onto their loved ones’ ashes and didn’t know what to do with them — until now.
Since its consecration back in June, Pocono Plateau has seen three interments (one of which involved a daughter who’d removed her father’s ashes from their mausoleum niche for greener burial in Jack’s forest). Nearly ninety families in all have purchased burial plots in the three EcoEternity sites, including the newest location due east of Richmond, Virginia.
Pennsylvanians will soon have even more choices for a natural return with the help of EcoEternity. In the coming year, the company plans to open a pair of new sites in the southeastern part of the state.
Philadelphia
Two weeks ago, the owners of West Laurel Hill Cemetery opened up a corner of its expansive grounds for natural burial. Founded shortly after the Civil War on the northwest outskirts of Philadelphia, West Laurel Hill is part of Laurel Hill, the second of the “rural” cemeteries that flourished in this country in the nineteenth century during a greening of the American deathscape.
The cemetery’s “Natural Sanctuary” is a 3.5 acre parcel where only green burials may take place. Embalmbed bodies are banned, burial vaults prohibited. Natural stones may mark the grave. A funeral home on site understands green burial concepts, makes basic caskets and can help families conduct home funerals.
I’ll write more about the Natural Sanctuary in an upcoming blog.
Eastern PA Home Funeral Providers
Families in eastern Pennsylvania — as is true for the rest of the state, and, for that matter, for most of the country — have always been able to care for their own deceased. Now, they can turn to two area organizations for help with those family undertakings.
In the Philadelphia region, there’s A Natural Undertaking, which is staffed by Jennifer Bingham and Donna Larson. Families in the greater Allentown region can turn to Penny Rhodes (610-756-6253) and Greta Brown (610-865-9050). Penny and Greta might work with a local funeral home that’s just gone green. More on Elias Funeral Home shortly.
Barbara Kernan: 1962 – 2008.
Finally, my sympathies to the family and friends of Barbara Kernan, an early advocate of home funerals in the Southern Carlifornia area, who died from breast cancer at the end of October.
Barbara was the founder of Thresholds, an organization that offered home funeral services and support in San Diego. I’d interviewed Barbara for the home funeral chapter of Grave Matters. We very quickly figured out that she grew up literally around the corner from my home in Pennsylvania and knew some of the friends I’d made since moving here. We’d hoped to meet up when she came back to visit her parents.
What I remember most from our exchanges was Barbara’s good humor and her spirited engagement with the funeral industry, to the extent that she even earned a funeral director’s license (to make it that much easier to encroach on their turf). I hear that Barbara’s own home funeral was a moving tribute to her life and work. A celebration of her life went into the wee hours, and when her body was taken to the crematory on Halloween Day, her friends wore witches hats.
Mark Harris, author
Grave Matters (www.gravematters)
Grave Matters – A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial
“Going Green in the Afterlife” CLIPPING: You can now go green even in the afterlife. Funeral homes are offering more options to those who want to return to nature more naturally.Going green, even in death, can be a reality. “This…
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As the green burial movement gathers steam, organizations have approached me to ask if I speak to groups about natural return. If so, they’ve wanted to know just what I’d present and how I’d do it.
The answer is, yes, I do speak about green burial and general funeral issues. In the last year, I gave some dozen presentations around the country on “grave matters” to college students, pro-consumer funeral groups, church congregations, hospice workers, and funeral directors, among others. The events have generally been free and open to the public.
For me, these engagements have offered the opportunity to present an updated tour of the green burial movement using images I’d wanted, but was unable, to include in Grave Matters. It’s one thing to write about a moving natural burial at Ramsey Creek Preserve; it’s quite another to see photographs of families gathered in that lush pine woods, circled around a plain, wood coffin that’s suspended above a cavity strewn with flowers and pine needles, the sun filtering through the tall canopy overhead.
That visual tour includes scores of photographs I took in the course of my research and travels, including those of natural burial grounds and backyard cemeteries, of burials at sea and via memorial reef ball, a honeycombed dome containing the deceased’s ashes that serves as an aquatic nursery off the U.S. and Canadian coastline.
Archival photographs I’ve collected show early American funerals and their progression to the more involved sendoffs of today. By way of contrast, I address the environmental aftermath of the standard funeral and how funeral directors are coming to embrace more natural returns.
If you’re interested in seeing one of these presentations, I’ll be speaking this spring in Rochester (NY), Princeton (NJ), and Greensboro (NC). You can find a full list of engagements, with specific locations, by clinking on this BookTour link.
If you’d like to bring me to speak to your group, you can reach me by e-mail: mark@gravematters.us. I’ll tell you more about the presentation and arrangements. I can also send testimonials from organizers of past engagements.
More on Bibb’s Ban of Green Burial (the subject of my last blog post)
Beth Collins — the CEO of the would-be Summerland Natural Cemetery in Macon, Georgia — attended a standing-room only board meeting of the Bibb County Commission earlier this week and asked members to repeal their anti-green cemetery ordinance. The chairman said he’d consult with fellow board members but, according to this story in the Macon newspaper, said he “didn’t think they would change their minds.” If they don’t, Collins suggested she’d bring a lawsuit against the county.
In the meantime, neighboring Twiggs County has quietly been considering its own green cemetery legislation. (The Twiggs County line borders one side of the Summerland cemetery.) From the looks of this item in the April 1, 2008 agenda of the County Commission, any ordinance would seem less than friendly to natural burial:
“After discussion and input from several citizens in attendance, Commissioner Epps made a motion to send a letter to the Macon-Bibb County Planning and Zoning Commission expressing our concerns regarding the placement of this type of cemetery so near to this County, and the environmental impact of such a cemetery. Floyd seconded. Unanimous Vote. Motion Carried.
Commissioner Epps made a motion to send a letter stating these same concerns to Mr. Dave Blankenship, of the District Health Office in Macon. Floyd Seconded. Unanimous Vote. Motion Carried.”
A Green Cemetery Ordinance for Twiggs County was passed on November 18. I’ll post a copy of the ordinance when I get it.
To see how one county council — this one in Wellington, New Zealand — has embraced, not fought, green burial, click on the video at the head of this blog. It profiles the folks who worked to establish the first modern natural cemetery in the southern hemisphere, the Wellington Natural Cemetery.
Mark Harris
Author, Grave Matters (www.gravematters.us)
Grave Matters – A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial
Paul Diamant reports on Eco-Funerals in New Jersey for the Star Ledger:LINK “[a natural burial is] what Paul Magalhaes Sr. wanted, so last October, when the 78-year-old North Bergen man was considering personal burial plans, he settled on a new…
Like the vast majority of green burial enthusiasts, I’m fortunate to live in a state where families may legally care for their own dead.
Pennsylvania, as I wrote in last week’s blog, is one of forty-three states that grants its citizens the right to essentially act as their own funeral directors. By law, we Keystoners can lay out and wake our deceased at home, file death certificates, even transport remains to the cemetery or crematory — among other last acts — on our own.
Pennsylvania’s family-friendly funeral regs make it easy for me to plan my green goodbye in advance (as I’m doing in recent and forthcoming blogs). But, as a number of you rightly note, that’s cold comfort if you live in New York, Connecticut, Nebraska, Indiana, Michigan, Utah and Louisiana.
Families in these seven states must by law engage the services of a funeral director to handle certain end of life affairs, from signing death certificates to overseeing the burial. I’ll leave it to Josh Slocum of the Funeral Consumers Alliance to skewer to supposed logic behind those requirements and argue for full family rights at end of life, which he does in this blog. Slocum’s post also links to groups that are working to overturn the restrictive funeral provisions.
Until legislators in those states see green, consider these tips when planning for the DIY natural return to the elements in the seven states above:
* Learn what your state requires when death comes calling.
The exact requirements vary by state. Indiana authorities will accept death certificates only if they’re signed by funeral directors. Hospitals, nursing homes, hospice centers and other state-licensed institutions in New York will release remains only to funeral directors.
If you know your state’s specific requirement for end of life matters, you’ll go into any funeral arrangement conference fully prepared to contract with a funeral director for only what you need her to do — and not do.
You can find your state’s regulations through the search I outlined in last week’s blog. Also helpful is Lisa Carlson’s book, Caring for the Dead, and your local affiliate of the family-advocacy Funeral Consumers Alliance.
* Hire a green-leaning funeral director.
As the natural burial movement gains traction, a growing number of funeral directors are catering to the specific requests of its eco-friendly clientele. The handful of funeral directors I contacted in the restrictive states above not only proved knowledge about green funerals but were willing to help families conduct as much of them as they wanted.
Where do you find those directors? If your end-of-life plans call for burial in a natural cemetery, contact the cemetery and ask for a referral. When I called Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve in Newfield, New York, for leads, burial coordinator Jennifer Johnson enthused about Lisa Auble.
Auble, a state licensed funeral director who owns and operates Lansing Funeral Home, has overseen a number of funerals and burials at Greensprings. “I believe in [green burial],” she told me. “And interest is really, really increasing.” Per state law, Auble has assisted families who chose Greensprings by filing death certificates, overseeing burials, and, when necessary, removing remains from hospitals and like institutions.
Beyond that, she said she’ll do as much or as little as a family requests. In most cases, her involvement has included transporting remains from their place of death and then, usually, placing them on dry ice (which, to her initial surprise, she found better preserves a body than refrigeration). Auble has also sewn fabric into shrouds for coffin-less burials.
The Green Burial Council is another useful source for leads. The Santa-Fe non-profit posts a state-by-state list of funeral directors who have gained the Council’s eco certification. And, again, your local Funeral Consumers Alliance affiliate can steer you to area funeral homes they’ve found particularly helpful.
* Be clear about what you want your funeral director to do — and nail down the cost.
Once you know the services a funeral director must by law undertake and, then, know the ones you and your family want to handle yourselves, you can check them off the General Price List the director will produce at an arrangement conference.
You’ll also see in black and white the costs for each. The Nathan Butler Funeral Home in Bloomington, Indiana, for example, charges 0 to sign and deliver the death certificate. You’ll pay Lansing Funeral Home almost ,600 if you have Auble and her staff handle the only services you can’t DIY by law in New York (0 for her to be present at the burial, another ,275 in non-declinable fees that cover arranging services, filing the death certificate, among others).
Note on the photograph above: The red flags indicate potential grave sites at Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve.
Mark Harris
Author, Grave Matters (www.gravematters.us)
Grave Matters – A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial
First Green Jewish cemetery opens | JTA – Jewish & Israel News. SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — The first Green Jewish cemetery in the United States was dedicated. Gan Yarok, Hebrew for “green garden” is a Jewish section of the Forever…
From USA Today, more proof of eco burial’s growing purchase on the American consciousness: nearly 65% of green-leaning adults say that they are considering or would consider a natural return, were it possible.
The latest funereal stats blipped on my radar just as I was studying Colorado House Bill 1202: Concerning the Regulation of Persons Who Provide for the Final Disposition of Dead Human Bodies in the Normal Course of Business.
Talk about a study in contrasts.
On one hand, an indication of green burial’s broadening appeal. On the other, a funeral bill that never directly addresses green burial, natural return, home funerals, or their providers — although there’s plenty said about funeral directors, mortuary science practitioners, cremationist, embalmers, funeral establishments and their services.
In other words: a bill that treats the most major shift to U.S. funeral traditions since Civil War surgeons began embalming Union casualties as if it practically doesn’t exist or, at the very least, doesn’t much matter. In this bill, the modern funeral is the only (end) game in town.
Little wonder DIYers are protesting. As some see it, HB 1202 not only marginalizes them but threatens their ability to carry out their family- and earth-friendly practices.
The Colorado Funeral Directors Association helped write the bill, whose stated and worthy goal is to offer greater protection to funeral-buying families in a state that affords little. As for concerns about the new bill’s limiting a family’s right to green burial and home funerals, CFDA contends that those rights are in fact retained in legal statues elsewhere.
If that’s true, then the best solution may be this: To re-craft a consumer protection bill that not only shields Centennial Staters from bad funeral practices and their agents but that ALSO spells out their right to care for their own dead, from filing death certificates and buying third-party caskets to waking and laying out their loved ones in their own homes, without the aid of a funeral director.
While we’re at it, let’s go ahead and name and define the funeral practices — and practitioners — that more and more Colorado families are turning to when death comes calling, including green burial and home funerals.
For families, the solution would be a double win. They’d get the consumer protections they deserve and the clearly-stated right to take the care of their dead into their own hands.
As I write this, HB has been sent back to committee for revision, to address some of the concerns above.
UPDATE
I didn’t post this soon enough. On April 22, HB 1202 passed through committee, with amendments. It now moves to further committee consideration and then onto a Senate vote. Natural Transitions, a Boulder-based home funeral advocacy, continues to have reservations about the bill. For more information, click here.
There is one win for supporters of natural return in Colorado. The most significant change to the proposed bill involved the adoption of a separate amendment that will more specifically allow for home funerals and green burial.
SPEAKING OF GREEN BURIAL
For anyone interested in learning more about — and seeing images from — the green burial movement, I’ll be giving a number of presentations in the coming weeks. Most are free and open to the public.
May 3: Rochester (NY)
May 17: Philadelphia
May 18: Montreal
May 20: Ithaca
May 21: Syracuse
For more information, click here.
The video above features Ken West, a promoter of green burial in the U.K. who opened the country’s first natural cemetery in Carlisle, in 1991.
Grave Matters – A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial
I have spoken to enough eco-leaning funeral directors since the publication of Grave Matters to see first-hand that the same greening that’s washing over most industries in this country, from agriculture (organic foods) to construction (LEEDs-certified homes), is coming to mortuary science.
If I ever doubted that, I needed only to read last fall about the funeral director in the town next to mine who’d begun offering seagrass caskets, refrigeration, and help with home wakes out of a rehabbed Victorian mansion in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
When green burial comes to the greater Lehigh Valley — a somewhat conservative, largely blue-collar enclave that boasts well-worked farmland and rugged brownfields — it shows the movement for a more natural return can land just about anywhere.
Just how will it take? To find out, I drove out to Elias Funeral Home in downtown Allentown and talked with its forty-something owner and supervisor Nicos Elias.
A near ten-year veteran of the funeral trade, Nicos ventured into green burial after attending a seminar on the topic put on by the Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association in the fall of 2008. “They talked about how [green funerals] is a growing trend and that we may be called on to do these types of services,” Nicos told me in the conference room of his funeral home, a bank of casket ends lining one wall. The group distributed a sample General Price List from a funeral home that had offered green goods and services.
For Nicos going green just made sense. For one, it was good for the planet, “a way of being responsible to the Earth in deathcare,” he says.
It made smart business sense, too. Funerals clearly are trending green, Nicos believed. And since no one else was doing it, jumping on the eco-burial bandwagon offered the indie funeral director a way of differentiating himself from the very stiff competition.
So, after he bought the old Trexler Mansion and converted it into a funeral home late last year, he advertised himself as green funeral provider — the first in the area. “I want to be the funeral director that families in the Lehigh Valley think of when they want to do a green funeral,” he says.
By then, Nicos had more carefully researched the movement and modeled a green GPL off existing ones elsewhere. In the process, he consulted with Cynthia Beal of the Natural Burial Company, an eco-casket supplier in Eugene, Oregon. From Cynthia he ordered a couple of caskets made from willow and seagrass, and “acorn” urns of paper mache.
Either casket is provided in his five natural burial packages, all of which replace embalming with refrigeration (in a unit on the premises) or dry ice. Burial shrouds, produced by Esmerelda Kent, the San Francisco artist who created the shrouds used in that famous green burial episode of Six Feet Under, are available, as well. Visitations with unembalmed remains are among the options, although Nicos prefers to limit them to families.
What’s striking about the packages, which you can view here, is what I’ve long argued: that funeral directors can find the green in green burial.
For nearly ,000, for example, Nicos offers a green version of the standard funeral service: the typical funeral director fees, transfer of remains from place of death, evening visitation and funeral at his home, among others, plus refrigeration, eco-casket and vault (as required by local cemeteries). Less expensive packages, down to just under ,000, are available with fewer goods and services (no public visitation or funeral).
His green funerals fall short of the ,000-plus Nicos might earn for an average, modern funeral. But not bad, especially when you consider that families that come to green burial are those which very well might otherwise have chosen an even bigger revenue loser for the funeral trade: cremation, whose average cost is ,800.
Those are just the packages. Nicos recently sat down with Penny Rhodes, a local deathcare midwife, and offered to help her with families seeking assistance with home funerals. When I asked Nicos what else he’d be willing to do to help families interested in funeral options that lay outside the box, he said simply, “I want to [help them] in any way possible.”
Since talking with Nicos last spring, he told me he had recently done one green funeral. For that, he refrigerated the remains and arranged a private family viewing in his funeral home the day before burial (in an all-wood casket) at an old cemetery in Connecticut. “Everything went quite well,” he said, “and seemed to be exactly what [the family] wanted.”
Mark Harris, author Grave Matters (www.gravematters.us)
Grave Matters – A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial
Slide presentation on Home Funerals and Green Burials by Donna Belk http://www.slideshare.net/dbelk/home-funerals-and-green-burial
HOME FUNERAL.info