To bury, or not to bury: That is the question when it comes to a final resting place

Written by FRANCES KIDD

At Oak Hill Cemetery in Newnan‚ dozens of Confederate soldiers are laid to rest. The cemetery is a quiet‚ historic and peaceful place to walk or sit and ponder. Photo by Beth Neely.

It’s been said that everything old becomes new again, even, as it turns out, methods of interment.

Today, there are more options than ever for burial, including burial of the body in a casket, cremation, green burials that allow the deceased to go naturally back into the earth, and terramation (or, human composting).

Until the mid-19th century, most human burials were what we today would call green burials: Loved ones prepared the body of the deceased for burial without preservative chemicals.

Casualties of the Civil War were left where they fell, decomposing on the battlegrounds. Even if wealthy families could pay to have bodies shipped back home, the lack of refrigeration and/or embalming resulted in few bodies returning to their hometown.

Some years before the War, Frenchman Jean Gannal published a book updating the methods used by ancient Egyptians who practiced a simple method of embalming. After the book was translated into English, Americans began learning about embalming techniques, primarily by “practicing” on deceased soldiers. According to America Alive website, a storytelling resource, about 40,000 of the approximately 650,000 soldiers who died during the Civil War were embalmed.

After President Abraham Lincoln’s 11-year-old son died in 1862, he was embalmed, according to an article in “Smithsonian Magazine.” And after the president was assassinated, he was embalmed in anticipation of drawing large crowds of mourners as his body traveled cross-country by train to his burial place in Springfield, Ill.

Since then, the U.S. funeral industry has ballooned to an estimated $20 billion-per-year business.

The burying business

As cemetery superintendent for the City of Newnan, John Martin oversees Oak Hill and Eastview Cemeteries. His office is about a lot more than selling burial plots. His team is responsible for grounds maintenance, landscaping, repairing grave spaces, preparing grave spaces for burials, administering cemetery lot sales, and assisting the public with locating specific gravesites; all of these services are included in the price of a plot.

Martin and his staff provide a friendly and sympathetic face for the families and friends who come to his office.

“When we have families come in here, either they’re preparing for death or it’s happened,” Martin says. “We just try to have a conversation.”

They provide the same services for those who wish to bury cremated remains, or cremains.

Though there are many alternatives to traditional burial, some folks won’t have it.

“In my case, I would not consider any method other than coffin” says lifetime Newnan resident Bill Stephens. “After all, my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, and wife were in coffins. Call it tradition, if you will. I just do not feel comfortable being laid to rest next to my wife other than the way she was.”

Although his decision is clear, Stephens expresses respect for anyone who selects other options.

“As a believer, it doesn’t really matter what happens to my body after death,” he says. “It’s the spirit that will live on.”

Destination cremation

Event organizer Maria Robinson says she thinks about the environmental effects traditional burial methods can have but allows she hasn’t settled on her end-of-life plans.

“I’m a researcher,” she says. “I’d have to try to understand the positives and negatives of the new methods.”

According to the Cremation Association of North America, scholars agree that cremation likely began during the early Stone Age in Europe and the Near East. During the late Stone Age, the practice of cremation moved across northern Europe. After Constantine’s Christianization of the Empire, earth burial replaced cremation, and for the next 1,500 years remained the accepted mode of disposition throughout Europe. America’s first modern crematory was built in 1876 by Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne on land he owned in Washington, Penn.

After cremation comes the decision on what to do with the ashes. Often, the deceased has given instructions on how they should be dispersed. 

Though it’s technically a misdemeanor to spread cremated remains anywhere without permission, in many cases family members scatter ashes in places that held special meaning to the deceased.

For those wishing to travel out of space, Beyond Burials has just the thing. Ashes can be blasted into space for memorials in packages ranging from the $1,500 Starlight Memorial to the $7,500 Milky Way Memories.

The percentage of people shooting ashes into space may be fairly small, but the number of people choosing cremation continues to grow, according to Martin. He estimates that about 17 to 20 percent of Oak Hill Cemetery’s services are for cremations. He added that he’s sure the overall local number is higher than that since cremains from the funeral homes aren’t always buried.

Newnan resident Debbie Vines has made her definitive plans: “I want to be cremated, and then I want everybody to have a party.”

Edith Merritt places flowers at her husband Wayne’s grave at Whispering Hills Natural Green Cemetery. The tribute stone used as his marker was selected from a granite outcropping at the cemetery site. 

Going green

In his book, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” author Mark Haddon writes: “When people die they are sometimes put into coffins, which means that they don’t mix with the earth for a very long time until the wood of the coffin rots.”

Green burials speed up that process.

Sixty-eight percent of respondents surveyed in the 2024 National Funeral Directors Association’s Consumer Awareness and Preferences Report would like to explore nontoxic end-of-life alternatives, an upshoot from nearly 56 percent in 2021.

Due to growing concern about the environment, some are turning to what the funeral industry calls green burial.

According to an article in the December 2024 issue of AARP’s magazine, a green cemetery is one that has a more natural and environmentally friendly approach to end-of-life burials. Embalmed bodies, metal caskets or cement vaults are not allowed. Cremated remains, or cremains, may be buried or scattered after mixed with a special soil to encourage plant growth.

For burial, the body is placed in a biodegradable casket or shroud and lowered directly into the ground without a vault. Green burials, typically less expensive than traditional burials, only utilize natural, biodegradable materials to allow remains to return to earth naturally.

It may be a surprise to learn that options for green burials already exist in the state of Georgia, including one right down the road in LaGrange. Whispering Hills Natural Green Cemetery features 40 acres for burials. The rolling forestland and meadows are dotted throughout with granite fieldstone markers indicating the location of graves.

“When we opened, there were about 150 green cemeteries in the U.S.” says Jean Howard who, with her brother Ralph Howard, opened the preserve in 2021. “Now, there are about 300.”

Going (away) organically

If it seemed like there couldn’t be anything beyond a green burial, the Georgia legislature earlier this year passed a law allowing and regulating what they call organic human reduction. The law went into effect in July.

Also called terramation, this process involves placing the body in a specialized vessel and using microbes and organic matter to speed up the natural decomposition of human remains. At the end of the process, families are left with nutrient-rich soil they can use to garden, plant trees or donate to conservation lands.

After about three months, the vessel is opened and the “soil” is filtered to remove any medical devices such as prosthetics, pacemakers or joint replacements. 

In six months, the body with accompanying wood chips and straw will transform into enough soil to fill the bed of a pickup truck, according to the Associated Press.

Another environment-friendly option that’s emerging in the funeral business is mushroom coffins. Biodegradable coffins are made using mycelium, the root structure of fungi; burial in these organic containers speeds up the decomposition process, returning “dust to dust” in a more natural manner. Mushroom urns are available for burying cremated remains.

In the name of science

Another way of posthumously helping the world is to donate your body to science. In Georgia, those making end-of-life plans can donate their bodies through Body Donor Programs at Emory University School of Medicine, the Medical College of Georgia, Morehouse School of Medicine and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Georgia Campus.

Bodies are used by medical school faculty and residents to develop new surgical techniques and diagnostic procedures or to provide continuing education to physicians and other health professionals.

According to the Medical College of Georgia’s Body Donor Program website, this practice is not new. The examination of the dead to learn about the living body was first practiced extensively in ancient Egypt.

Each institution may have different rules about the process. All require that the body must be cremated after scientific studies, and most institutions will cover cremation and transportation costs and return the ashes to the family.

Cowetan Jenny Lewis is an avid gardener who’s planning to utilize more than one method for her body’s disposal.

“My plan has always been to donate my body to a medical school, be cremated and then composted,” she says.

Practical planning

All these methods can get expensive, and prices for burial ceremonies continue to rise. When the City of Newnan announced that prices at Oak Hill Cemetery would be raised on January 1 this year, several residents made an early decision to buy space at Oak Hill, according to Cemetery Superintendent Martin.

There is burial assistance available for those who need it. According to the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Georgia, many Peach State residents lack the financial means to arrange for or pay for a simple, dignified funeral. In the most difficult cases, the deceased’s body remains unclaimed until a local government intervenes, as required by Georgia law, to arrange an indigent burial or cremation. The law ensures that every person who dies in Georgia has access to an appropriate final disposition. Whenever a person dies without the ability to pay for burial or cremation, the county may cover those expenses, if they meet certain qualifications.

The Alliance, a nonprofit that advises consumers on how to obtain affordable funeral and burial arrangements, in June convened their 2025 Biennial Conference on the subject of “The Cost of Goodbye: Confronting Funeral Poverty in Our Communities.”

The choices are many for one of the most personal life decisions: what to do with your body when you’re dead. It can be up to you. NCM