photo by Kimberley Campbell
While an odd topic, it's an important one. I came across an article in a magazine that's similar to the one below. If ever I make an early exit, I just wanted to put it out there that this is what I'd like....
Preserve Offers Natural Burial Sites
This may not look like a cemetery, but it is for the more than 300 people who have pre-purchased grave sites at Ramsey Creek Preserve, a memorial nature park in Westminster.
Instead of an ornate tombstone, Sam and Eva Pratt have chosen a stately white oak to mark their final resting place. They've opted for patches of wildflowers and ferns to carpet their grave site, instead of neatly manicured turf.
"I do not like the sameness of most modern-day cemeteries with their rows of plastic flowers," Eva Pratt said. "The white oak is a noble tree that denotes and imbues life and withstands the storms and seasons."
The Pratts are two of the more than 300 people who have chosen "natural" burials, pre-purchasing grave sites at a memorial nature park called Ramsey Creek Preserve in Westminster.
"All natural" means the body isn't embalmed and can only be placed in biodegradable containers like a shroud or a cardboard or plain wood casket before it is buried. The eco-friendly cemetery is the first in the U.S. and meshes the need for burial space with land conservation, using the bulk of the money it receives to purchase, restore and maintain nature parks.
Breaking through stereotypes
When the Pratts invited Tommy Campbell, the founder of Ramsey Creek, to speak to one of their local conservation groups, Eva Pratt overheard a woman call the preserve a "place where they just throw you in the ground."
"People are skeptical at first about the respectability of natural burial, but after the services they'll come up and tell me it was beautiful, and this is what they want for themselves now," Campbell said.
"This really isn't a granola-crunching-hippy-dippy-Wiccan-earth-worshiping thing."
Sam and Eva, both 66, are anything but crystal-toting, astrology-subscribing new-agers.
Reserved and eloquent, they are evangelical Christians who believe passionately in land conservation and struggle with what they see as the waste and extravagance associated with modern burials.
"Land is the most wonderful asset we have, and in the 30 years we've lived in Spartanburg, it's become more important to me as I've seen more land degraded and bulldozed," Eva Pratt said. "And the things we took for granted when we were young are disappearing.
"I am happy to have my final spot on earth be a place I know, of preserved beauty, and for my body to become a part of that, undeterred by chemicals and hardware."
Saving both kinds of green
Three years ago, Mary Woodsen, a member of Commemorative Nature Preserves of New York, an organization that advocates memorial nature preserves, calculated the ecological cost of all the "chemicals and hardware" American cemeteries generate annually: 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete, 104,272 tons of steel, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze and 30 million board feet of hardwoods.
Campbell estimated an average funeral costs between $8,000 and $12,000 and industry revenues at $15 billion to $20 billion each year. At $2,000 for a plot, the cost of being buried at Ramsey Creek isn't cheap, but does offer substantial cost-savings over the conventional alternatives.
As a doctor and environmentalist, Campbell said he took a keen look at the funeral industry when his father died prematurely, and he had to make arrangements.
"The funeral director was talking about the vault and he told me 'not only does it have ornate scroll, it was guaranteed to last 100 years and would take 20,000 pounds per square foot,' " Campbell said. "My questions were who is going to dig it up in 100 years to check that, and are we trying to protect the corpse from a direct nuclear strike?"
Campbell was told the measures were to protect the body against nature, an idea he found both ridiculous and wasteful.
"Back in junior high, I had a teacher who said when he died he wanted to be put in a burlap bag and have a tree planted on him," Campbell said. "I thought it was the coolest thing in the world."
Then, in a medical anthropology class during college, he was enthralled when he learned about a tribe in Papua New Guinea that kept their dead in sacred "spirit forests."
"They created little pocket wilderness, and the people protected these forests to honor their dead," Campbell said. "This stuff all kind of simmered in my brain until 1985 when my father died and a light-bulb went off and I realized you didn't have to be a New Guinea person to have a memorial park."
The thought of channeling funds from the lucrative funeral industry directly toward land conservation was a heady thought for the Campbells, but more so was the realization this could be an avenue to get people more deeply connected with nature and the land.
"Whatever kind of spiritual lens you bring to Ramsey Creek Preserve, something happens in a natural setting when you are quiet and surrounded by nature," said Kimberley Campbell, Tommy's wife. "It is a moment of mystery, like a peaceful sunset at a beach."
She said one of their clients, a 76-year-old woman, summarized the appeal of Ramsey Creek with a profound elegance that surprised her.
"We were walking through the woods and she said, 'I have to tell you I have gone to my church for 40 years and love it, and it was built by man to glorify God, but in these woods, this is God, this is His creation and I feel so close to Him and so peaceful.' "
With its bounty of wildflowers, foliage and the gentle gurgling of the creek, Ramsey Creek conjures up none of the traditional imagery associated with cemeteries.
"It's not creepy at all," Tommy Campbell said. "Come here on a spring day where all the leaves are popping and the woods are filled with butterflies and birds, and you'll see it's anything but creepy."
Originally, he thought the idea of a natural setting would appeal mostly to boomers, but Campbell has been surprised by the diversity of the people who have expressed interest in the memorial park.
"Some are attracted to the whole-body burial for a much lower cost; then we do have the older outdoorsy people who just like hiking, as well as the evangelical Christians who feel its more in keeping with the dust to dust and protecting God's creation," Tommy Campbell said. "One patient of mine who had led anti-zoning people locally surprised me when he bought a plot; but he told me, 'I love the woods, it's you environmentalists I don't like.' "
Disruptive innovation – challenging the status quo
The cost savings and natural beauty suggest Ramsey Creek would be a compelling option, but since the park opened in 1998, it has only had 80 people buried there, while another 300 plots have been pre-sold.
In contrast, Glenn Miller, the general manager at Floyd Mortuary in Spartanburg, said his business performs about 850 burials in a year. He said he has only fielded one inquiry about natural burial.
"It may be the distance people have to travel if they care to visit a grave site or the fact there may not be any permanent memorial," Miller said. "Most families still have the traditional type funeral service with a final disposition."
Kimberley Campbell said she thinks the tendency toward traditional burial has more to do with misconceptions about the natural alternative and a lack of education about other viable options.
Sam Pratt, for example, said he'd "been laboring under the misapprehension that burial without embalming was unlawful."
Not only is it legal, Kimberley Campbell said the stigma of natural burial being crude or uncivilized seems misplaced when compared to the invasiveness of pumping chemicals into the body.
"During the embalming process you are replacing the blood with toxic chemicals that burn if you get them on your skin," Kimberley Campbell said. "Its not a legal requirement to be embalmed but people think they are preserving the body and are uncomfortable with the sense of decay."
"Apparently, Americans have been sold the notion they can protect their deceased loved ones against the elements," Eva Pratt said. "I thought it was necessary to be embalmed, and I also thought the time constraints would be more stringent for natural burial."
In reality, Tommy Campbell said, keeping the body in a cooler works as well as embalming to preserve the body.
Their customers have the option of using local funeral homes to keep and transport the body, but Kimberley Campbell said people also can opt to do everything themselves and use dry ice or keep the body at the hospital morgue until the burial.
Another question people raise is if their loved ones will be able to locate their grave in the woods. In the case of Ramsey Creek, "simple" burial takes advantage of modern technology in the form of a geographic information system to record the exact location of each burial site. Clients also can choose to get their names and dates engraved on a stone, but the slab has to be of South Carolina origin, as does any foliage.
The Pratts chose a stone from a creek on their property to use for a tombstone.
"The owners have an obvious commitment to the preservation of the indigenous flora and fauna to the area," Sam Pratt said. "We found a more natural, scenic burial ground more attractive, and we're glad to be able to participate in land preservation."
The Campbells say they aren't discouraged with the progress they are making as they attempt to disrupt social norms with their innovative idea.
"If this can work in conservative, rural Westminster with its rebel flags and churches, it can work anywhere," Kimberley Campbell said.
Since opening Ramsey Creek, the Campbells have helped start three other memorial parks across the United States and are working on a fourth in Atlanta.
"To disrupt an industry you generally need to find people who are underserved, over served or both," Tommy Campbell said. "We have people who can't afford regular funerals and people who don't want them, and that's the perfect climate for being disruptive innovators. Once we are out there with more locations it will become a more convenient choice."
