STORM2K

Town May Offer Do-It-Yourself Funeral Site

POSTED: 9:31 am EST December 28, 2005
UPDATED: 2:33 pm EST December 28, 2005

A family in St. George, Vt., wants to turn 50 acres of undeveloped land into a natural burial ground for do-it-yourself funerals.

One of the people proposing the plan, Lisa Carlson, said families could actually dig a grave or pick a spot to leave cremated remains -- no caskets, no concrete vaults and no embalming.

"The idea of a garden park and nature reserve just makes so much sense," she said.

The town select board has the final say on what happens to the land. No decision has been made yet, but the board's chair said the land might be better suited for commercial or residential use.

Plans for similar natural burial grounds also are being considered in California, Ohio and Wisconsin.

http://www.wral.com/news/5688993/detail.html

Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc.

With the high cost these days for burial, it seems this would be great for certain families. Not everyone would want to go out and dig their own hole, but alot would. I think it's a pretty good idea. The only thing I would not like if I chose to do it would be fact there is no casket for the dead. I would want my loved one in a casket of somekind weather it be made by my family or bought.

I kind of want to be set ablaze on a lake.

Just a simple cremation for me; no service, gawking onlookers, none of that.

I do want my ashes kept intact within a sealed container, and taken to North Dakota; can't see them being dumped or interred in what I consider "alien soil".

Sounds like a good idea... funerals are so expensive.

I assume that these entrepaneurs have done their homework. There are laws concerning burials - at least for non-cremated remains.

I suppose that for ashes, it's different, because there's little chance of public health issues.

Now I have to think about what to do with me.

Maybe mix my ashes in a batch of concrete and make a life-size statue of me.

Since I have a love of archeology, I'd love to be preserved with the best available techniques in the hope that somebody will dig me up a few thousand years from now and say, "Great Scott! Would you look at what late 20th-century medicine did to this woman?!"