WOODSTOCK — The simplest definition of a green burial is the placement of a body in the soil in a manner that allows it to decompose naturally.

The Woodstock Cemetery Committee is considering selling plots for green burials on a fairly secluded piece of land at the end of Twitchell Road off Route 26.

Town Manager and Cemetery Committee member Vern Maxfield, working with residents Monica Mann and Emily Ecker, suggested the spot for its simplicity and peacefulness.

Mann and Ecker wrote a proposal requesting the committee follow three guidelines for the space: no vaults or caskets; containers or shrouds made of organic materials; and nontoxic preparation of bodies.

“The importance is being as natural as possible,” Ecker said. “The whole idea of embalming and putting all those chemicals into the ground, doesn’t sync with me,” she said. “Everything just returns to the earth.”

“I personally just want to be a GPS coordinate,” Mann said. The point is to go back to earth.”

There were concerns of wild animals digging up bodies, she said, but 18 inches is where all the organic activity happens, she said. “You don’t need to go 6 feet deep, because there’s nothing going on down there. You want things to decompose, so it’s in the uppermost layer.”

“Eighteen inches down blocks the sense of smell, so there isn’t a problem with animals,” Ecker said.

The state has no depth requirement, nor does it have requirements for distance from water or from buildings, as some other states require.

If the cemetery committee decides to allow green burials, they would be, according to an internet search, only the fourth town in the state to do so. There are two exclusively green burial sites in Limington and Orrington. Falmouth has a cemetery that allows green and traditional burials.

 

Considerations

Besides burial depth and decomposition considerations, the committee will need to decide if headstones, shrubs, plastic flowers and mementos would be allowed, and would the deceased’s family be allowed to dig the hole and bury the body without assistance.

Plot size will need to be considered, too.

Ecker and Mann recommended individual plots would ideally not exceed 7 feet by 32 inches and have 2 feet between them.

They said financial considerations for them are secondary. The savings for a green burial versus a traditional one can be dramatic. According to funeralocity.com, the average traditional full service burial in Maine is $7,602.

Direct cremations cost around $2,347, on average.

Neither Mann nor Ecker is interested in cremations.

“It takes a tremendous amount of fuel,” Ecker said. “Cremation is not ecological. My husband is Jewish and the correlation between cremation and the holocaust is very sensitive. He does not want to be cremated.”

She said a green burial suits her because, “I have religious faith that my soul is separate from my body.”

Green burials in Woodstock could cost as little as $400, depending on the requirements set by the committee. That’s the amount Woodstock charges for a cemetery plot for one body.

An engraved fieldstone might cost $100; a wool or cotton compostable shroud could be hand sewn or, if purchased, run from $160 to $529 or more.

Both women said it’s not about the money, it’s about the process. They believe funeral homes and traditional burials are the right choice for many people.

“I’m sensitive to not wanting to knock the funeral industry, because people are part of that in our community,” Ecker said. “To me, it’s an unnecessary expense.”

Another consideration for some is simply being buried on their property. The state does not require a license, however a family burial ground must be recorded with the county registry of deeds and the town clerk. Additionally, the burial area must be enclosed by a fence or some other boundary marker, must not exceed a quarter acre and must have an easement to a public way.

This past summer, after seeing a documentary series titled, “Bury Me at Taylor Hollow,” Mann was inspired to find out if she could also have a green burial. “I was totally mesmerized,” she said.

Mann said her first memory of death and wakes was when she was 6 or 7 growing up in Baltimore. Possibly to help her understand death, her grandmother took her to a funeral home where she saw a man she didn’t know laid out in an open casket.

“I look at (the after-death custom) as a very impersonal process. The loved one is taken away,” she said. “All these people are doing things to it and handling it. It’s this presentation. It’s not my style. But it may be suited to other people.

“All along from the time of that first funeral (I thought) that’s the way it’s done and when I saw the movie (showing green burials), I thought, holy mackerel! I thought people stopped doing that in the days of the Wild West.”

 

Proposed site

On the lower end of the elongated Twitchell Road cemetery are the graves of the Nute family. On the upper end are the graves of the Stephens family, which the marker spells “Stevens.” On the Stephens side is the stone of Ada M. Dow who died in 1939.

In an open field about 80 by 40 in the center are one or two smaller stones. It’s this area where green burials would be designated.

Joyce Howe, one of eight or nine people on the cemetery committee, said as far as she knows there are no graves in the center of the cemetery.

With help from the Woodstock Historical Society, she wrote a book several years ago identifying over 25 Woodstock cemeteries. One cemetery is on Billings Hill and has just fieldstones.

“It’s way in the woods, it’s really cool,” Howe said.

The Nute and Stephens families were farmers and neighbors on Twitchell Road many generations ago, Howe said. This cemetery is well-suited for green burials, because the families have left the area, which gives the town freedom to do with it what it wants.

A wooded path that Howe and her husband clear periodically leads to the space that is encircled by a stone wall with old trees along the edges. She said the narrow lane is barely wide enough for a car or truck to get through and would have to allow people to walk down.

The next of the cemetery committee will likely not be until March, Maxfield told Mann.

“Vern,” she responded, “you know I’m 72 years old. Everyday is a blessing here.”

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