re: Glendale Memorial Nature Preserve - "Green Cemetery" in Walton County, Florida
From Walton Sun:
Life and death are inextricably linked. As Benjamin Franklin once said, ?Nothing is certain in life, but death and taxes.?
However, modern day Americans have managed to turn the business of death into a profit for the living.
Most estimates put funeral arrangements upwards of $6,000. According to the Wall Street Journal, for little more than a million deaths per year in the United States, the funeral industry rakes in more than $7 billion in profits.
To counteract the trend, many are turning to alternative burial methods.
Specifically, ?green burials? offer a chance for family members to be involved with the death of a loved one, while saving thousands of dollars in an eco-friendly manner. Green burials prohibit the use of embalming fluids or extravagant coffins.
Often family members are involved with the preparation of the body and laying their loved ones to rest, eliminating the need for undertakers.
?The funeral director does a great disservice. It?s much more therapeutic to be involved with the process. It gives you something to do, it gives you a purpose,? Willie von Bracht, author of ?Critical Choices,? who also builds pine caskets, said.
Von Bracht believes that people should be made aware that they have more choices when it comes to burying their loved ones.
?People think they have very little choice and take what?s offered. Part of it is the millions of dollars that cemeteries have put together that make people think that if you don?t spend the money (on a funeral), then you didn?t love them,? he said.
Montana resident Alan Rosenberg?s family recently buried his mother-in-law in a pine casket she chose from von Bracht?s shop. The family was an integral part of the burying process, even helping to close the gravesite.
?She was from the Old Country, (where) your family takes care of you in life and they take care of you in death. It was very natural and shared with an intimate setting. There was no business involved,? he said. ?It?s the way to go.?
Amidst the sprawling countryside, dotted with wetlands and open fields sits one of only five green burial grounds in the United States, the Glendale Memorial Preserve in DeFuniak Springs.
Chufa farmers by trade, the Wilkerson brothers never intended for their parents? land to become an ecologically sound burial ground, it was a matter of saving their 350-acre family farm from development.
However, Bill and John found that was easier said than done. With taxes and rising property values, ?it?s virtually impossible,? John said.
The pair spent more than three years researching ways to preserve their parent?s land, and then they came across information about a green burial place in North Carolina.
?It was divine intervention,? John said. ?Education is the only way you can beat the property tax man.?
With some bureaucratic help, in 2002, they turned their property into a nonprofit green cemetery. To accomplish this, they abdicated the right to sell their land. However, the pair can live on the land with their families for the rest of their lives.
Florida is one of the only states, ?where you don?t have to go through the system,? John said.
According to the brothers, their father instilled a love for the land in them, but they ?were never much into that tree hugging, fern sniffing mode,? John said. However, the pair opposes the commercialization of the funeral process.
?(Undertakers) have removed modern American?s ability to deal with death. There?s nothing traditional about what they do. People think it?s easier to write a check,? John said.
Glendale offers free plots, an outdoor chapel and a $1,000 fee for opening and closing the grave space. In addition, the brothers hand make pine coffins in their onsite lumber mill, beginning at $400.
The Wilkerson?s said they receive many accolades for the alternative option they?ve afforded families.
?People are grateful, we?ve allowed them to have that opportunity,? Bill said.
?It?s a wonderful feeling,? John said.
Anyone familiar?
Interesting concept ........
