Kenyon College's Green Cemetery Opening Ceremony Oct. 8, 2015

The new sign for the Kokosing Nature Preserve.  Kenyon alumnus Steven Christie did the stonework for this sign.  (Photo by Don Comis)

 After a dedication ceremony, visitors start a tour of the Kokosing Nature Preserve.  The stone pillars, built by Steven Christie, pay homage to the historic stone pillars that form the gateway to Old Kenyon.  (Photo by Don Comis)

On October 8, Kenyon College had a dedication service at its Kokosing Nature Preserve to mark the official opening of a combined public park and green cemetery.  More than 100 people attended the event, with most of the 110 seats under a canopy filled and a good crowd standing nearby.  Attendees included representatives of two funeral homes.

The  Flowers-Snyder Funeral Home in nearby Mount Vernon, Ohio, has earned the highest level of green cemetery certification.

Philander Chase Corporation Project Coordinator Amy Henricksen, speaking at the ceremony, invited everyone to enjoy the park, as a good place to walk and engage in quiet contemplation.  She said Kenyon has planted many native trees on the 24-acre site as well as shortgrass prairie and wildflowers.  She expressed delight that the wildflowers were still blooming on the day of the dedication.

Guests of honor at the ceremony included the chairman of the Philander Chase Corporation, which bought the land for the preserve, the site of the former Tomahawk Gulf Club;  Kenyon College President Sean Decatur;  and Steven Christie, the Kenyon alumnus who did all the stonework for the cemetery’s entrance and sign.

Guests of honor included (left to right) master stone mason Steven Christie, Kenyon College President Sean Decatur, and Rabbi Marc Bragin.  (Photo by Don Comis)
  

The chairman of the Philander Chase Corporation praised another advisor who could not attend the ceremony, Guy Denny, who created about 20 acres of prairie in Fredericktown, Ohio.  He called Denny the top land conservationist in Ohio.

In keeping with the preserve’s sacred space, Kenyon’s religious advisor, Rabbi Marc Bragin, gave a blessing for those currently buried in the preserve and those that will be in the future.  There are currently two people buried there, both friends of Lisa Schott, managing director of the Philander Chase Corporation.

Also an original poem was read and Kenyon singers performed for the ceremony.

About 2400 grave plots are available, both in wooded areas overlooking two ponds and in the prairie section.  The graves in the prairies will become part of the prairie, since the only mowing that will be done is to create temporary paths to the graves for services and to maintain the permanent paths in the preserve.  Grave markers must protrude no more than three inches from the ground and must look like natural rock, although they can be engraved with names and dates.

The prairie will be maintained by annual controlled burning that creates only enough heat to burn off surface vegetation to prevent woody plants from taking over the prairie grasses.

There is an option to bury bodies or ashes in the plots, as well as a low cost option of simply spreading ashes on a surface of the preserve.  All burial and ash spreading sites are located by GPS coordinates and recorded in cemetery records. Most plots can be reached by the permanently maintained paths.

There is an area cleared to form an amphitheater for possible performances by Kenyon dance or drama students.

Burial in Company of Friends

Lisa Schott by the fresh grave of  her friend's husband.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Lisa Schott (far left) and Amy Henricksen (fourth from left) lead tour of Kokosing Nature Preserve.  The grave is that of  Schott's friend, the first burial at the new green cemetery.  (Photo by Don Comis) 

Schott said that one thing that took her and Henricksen by surprise was that some of their friends and acquaintances would be buried here.  Schott faced that since a good friend of hers is buried here and a friend’s husband was buried here on September 19.  Schott herself plans to be buried here as does a friend of mine who really likes the idea of being buried in a nature preserve.

That’s something my wife, Helen, and I find tempting  too—not only being buried in a beautiful spot that is tied to my life, among friends, but also in a space legally preserved forever, with development and cemetery relocation forbidden, and the payment going for upkeep of the preserve and funding more land preservation by the Philander Chase Corporation.

Zoe Case was one of many who sowed prairie seeds courtesy of Kenyon's environmental group called the "Land Lords", a play on Kenyon's "Lords" athletic teams.  (Photo by Don Comis)

After the ceremony, all were invited to grab a big handful of prairie seeds and spared them on nearby land with a prepared seedbed.

The final event was a walking tour of the cemetery, where there was a moving moment as Schott stood by the fresh grave of her friend’s husband.              

Green Cemetery Part of Kenyon College's Land Preservation

Nature’s Cycle of Death and Renewal [Reprint of my Apple Valley Cider Press Article, July 2015 Issue]

Lisa Schott (left) and Kris Kennard Caldwell at a 2015 Reunion  tour of Kenyon College's new green cemetery.  (Photo by Don Comis)

First burial at Kenyon College's Kokosing Nature Preserve.  Only shallow natural stone grave markers are allowed.  The first marker can be seen in right foreground.  (Photo by Don Comis) 

June 6 [2015] at Kenyon College was a day of joy amidst death.  When I arrived at the Brown Family Environmental Center that day, I was surprised to see two fire trucks, one with a raised ladder. 

As I escorted my friends and their children and grandchildren, 18 of us by a quick count, to the Center’s ponds for Family Adventure Day, I could see a memorial service close by.  Then I saw a flag raised on the fire truck’s raised ladder and I remembered reading in the Mount Vernon News that there would be a memorial service at the Brown Center for a veteran born in Ohio, with parents in Gambier.

I was very aware that June 6 would also be the day of the first burial at Kenyon’s “green cemetery” on the grounds of the former Tomahawk Golf Course, at 10620 Quarry Chapel Road, one and a half miles northeast of Kenyon.  I had learned that in late May when I took a bus tour of sites Kenyon’s Philander Chase Corporation has preserved, one of the events at my 45^th class reunion.  The Corporation is Kenyon’s nonprofit land trust, created in 2000.

Development Eats up 7-9 Acres an Hour

The Chase land trust formation in 2000 was spurred partly by plans for a recreational-vehicle park along the Kokosing River, right at the base of Kenyon’s “Hill”.  Worried about inappropriate development near the college, amidst statewide development of 7 to 9 acres an hour, the college set up the trust to fund conservation and agricultural easements as well as outright land purchases in the college’s vicinity, if deemed essential. The Corporation matches state funding and provides expertise to farmers considering granting easements. 

Kenyon bought the site of the planned RV park.  For several years after that, the College set about buying land that was “strategically contiguous” to the first purchase, including the 480 acres that became the Brown Family Environmental Center preserve, which helps keep the Kokosing River pristine.   To date the college owns 1,200 acres, while helping fund easements on more than 3,800 additional acres.  And the Owl Creek Conservancy, a sister trust to the Chase trust, has preserved nearly 2,422 additional acres in the Knox County area.

Kokosing Nature Preserve Has First Burial

Lisa Schott, a 1980 Kenyon graduate who is managing director of the Philander Chase Corporation, explained that they bought the 51-acre golf course when it closed and no buyers were forthcoming.  They reduced the golf course to 9 holes on 27 acres and leased out that business and created a nature preserve and green cemetery on the rest of the land, called the “Kokosing Nature Preserve.” 

Schott explained that a green cemetery requires burials to use only biodegradable materials, with no concrete vaults or embalming of bodies.  This allows people to be buried in just a shroud if they wish or in a coffin made of wood, wicker, bamboo, cardboard, or any material that will degrade in the soil.  Wood used for the coffin can’t be treated wood.  Ashes can be buried as well.

In a fact sheet handed out on the tour I read that, “Natural burial is the way most people have been buried throughout the ages.  The use of concrete vaults and embalming are relatively new concepts, becoming popular in the United States during the Civil War.  Natural burial is a re-emerging movement nationally and worldwide.  The nation’s first conservation burial ground, Ramsey Creek Preserve in South Carolina, opened in 1998.  Forty-two [now 47] cemeteries are approved by the Green Burial Council across the United States.  The national burial movement…offers a traditional, environmentally sound alternative [to conventional burials]…the Green Burial Council [is] an independent not-for-profit organization that has established eco-certification standards for natural burial grounds.”

The cemetery is on 24 acres of restored prairies and woodlands, with the first burial being in a newly planted dogwood grove on a hill between ponds and woods, east of the cemetery’s entrance.  Each plot can accommodate one body and two people’s ashes or just the ashes of four people.  The June 6 burial was of ashes of one person.  There is room for about 2,300 plots, each measuring 10- by 15-feet.

The plots cost $5,000 each--$2,500 as a gift to the Philander Chase Corporation and $2,500 for the actual plot.  The money helps the Chase trust fund the purchase of easements on —or to buy—land to protect the area surrounding Kenyon and retain the pastoral beauty that gives Gambier and Knox County its character and environmental soundness.  As Schott said, “it’s good for everyone’s health and well-being.”

Kenyon is the first college or university to combine a green cemetery with land conservation.  Until the purchase of the Tomahawk Golf Course, the trust was funded only by donations from alumni and others. Schott noted the irony of one alumni donor who added as a restriction on how the donation could be used that it not be used by the college itself for development!

Ashes can also be scattered in designated areas throughout the nature preserve—wooded areas, prairie, ponds or wet meadows.  The price will be “significantly less than purchasing interment rights for a burial plot,” according to Amy Henricksen, project coordinator for the Philander Chase Corporation and steward of the Kokosing Nature Preserve.  The price will cover the cost of GPS locating and maintaining a permanent record of the scattering. 

This is the first green cemetery in central Ohio.  When approved by the Green Burial Council, it will be the fifth such approved cemetery statewide.  Plus, since the creation of the Kokosing cemetery, Knox County’s first Jewish green cemetery opened as an expansion of the College Township Cemetery near Quarry Chapel, Schott said.  Jewish cemeteries have always been green cemeteries. 

There are 50 Green Burial Council-approved cemeteries in North America to date, plus 206 approved funeral homes.  This includes the Flowers-Snyder Funeral Home in Mt. Vernon.  Henricksen said that the Schoedinger Funeral Homes in Columbus are also an approved provider “and they have expressed interest in having us meet with their directors/staff when we are operational as well.”

Henricksen added that both the Dowd-Snyder and Lasater Funeral Homes in Mt. Vernon “have agreed to share information about [the] Kokosing Nature Preserve with families who are interested in green burial.”

The Kokosing Nature Preserve is open to everyone as a park and cemetery, although it is not fully operational yet, with no signage and final landscaping, pillar stonework, and other work underway.  Henricksen said, “our plan is to be fully marketing/selling plots by the end of the summer.”

Schott said that participants in the first burial had a picnic in the park after the burial, complete with a bluegrass band, to celebrate the life of their loved one.

 

She said many people are signing up for plots from all over the country, not just people related to Kenyon.

Stephen Christie, a 1971 Kenyon graduate, is the landscape architect for the preserve.  He supervised the planting of the oak and maple trees that line the cemetery’s entrance and the dogwood grove. David Kridler, a 1975 Kenyon graduate, is the master stone mason doing the stonework for the pillars at the cemetery’s entrance and the cemetery sign.

The pillars are a nod to the old stone center pole at the gateway of the “Middle Path” that goes straight through the historic part of Kenyon, a pole I’ve remembered fondly ever since the ‘60s, when I passed it daily on the way to classes. 

As I walked around the Kokosing Nature Preserve ponds during the reunion tour, I heard more green frogs give their human-like scream and plop into the water than ever before.  I was also thrilled to watch a large snapping turtle amble from one pond to another while a great blue heron stood nearby.

Hendricksen said, “There are about 70 burial plots in the newly planted dogwood grove.” About another 150 plots will be in the existing woods.  “The majority of the plots will be in the open spaces that have been planted to prairie grasses and wildflowers,” she said.

Kenyon Farm Safe for Posterity

Besides the green cemetery, Schott showed us many other acres protected by the Corporation, including the 11-acre Kenyon Farm on Route 308, on the way to Kenyon from Route 36.  Kenyon bought that farm in 2012. 

An article in the Kenyon College Alumni Bulletin in 2012 said that while the trust normally limits itself to a radius of about five miles around Kenyon, it made an exception when it helped the County create Wolf Run Regional Park.  The pace of purchasing easements has quickened since 2010, from 15 to more than 30, according to the article.

The article quoted Schott as saying, “I think the College is wise…You want to protect your view corridors, and you want to protect your water. The Kokosing River is dear, and not only for the beauty's sake. We want this buffer.” 

On our recent alumni tour, Schott said that Kenyon wants to be sure that students see farmland when they look out the windows of their dining hall—and that people driving in the area see Kenyon’s historic buildings as a backdrop to a bucolic landscape. 

On our bus ride, she pointed out the sight of the stone tower rising from historic Peirce Hall, which houses the student dining area, overlooking farmland and farmhouses and barns.

Schott said neither she nor the Chase trust is anti-development, but support only careful development that is right for an area.

The Next Generation of Wildlife

At the Brown Center on June 6, the children caught tadpoles in several stages of development as well as one small frog and a baby painted turtle.  So we know the amphibians have mated.  On an earlier walk at the Center, during another reunion activity, we heard baby pileated woodpeckers crying for food and watched one of the parents conduct a frantic search for food before nightfall, while talking to itself!

Later, while driving on AV Drive on June 8 to check out AV resident Debbie Minard’s hostas, we stopped as a doe crossed the road and then saw her tiny fawn with enough sense to delay crossing until assured we were stopped and then joined her watchful mother.  That was the youngest fawn I’ve seen.

Minard told me she had seen a red-bellied woodpecker couple taking food from her feeder to three youngsters perched on a branch above the feeder.  This proved to me that Minard is right about the importance of feeding birds in summer—this is when they teach youngsters how to recognize bird feeders.

I also learned recently that the purple, white and pink flowers that brightened roadsides and woods for several weeks this spring were Dame’s rocket, not the phlox I thought they were. Dame’s rocket was an old garden favorite in England years ago.  People planted it in American gardens and it escaped.  Since it’s so plentiful around Memorial Day, this is the flower I think should be planted on veterans’ graves, replacing the daffodils my 95-year-old mother-in-law recalls placing on Civil War graves on what used to be called Decoration Day.

Nature’s cycle of life and death continues.

Note:  Check out my website (www.doncomis.simplesite.com) and blog (www.donaldcomis.blogspot.com) for more photos and stories.  For example, by searching for my “Visiting Guy Denny's Ohio Prairie” blog of July 27, 2014, you can read about my experience last year at an event that will be repeated this July 26, with a link to the Owl Creek Conservancy’s website list of this and other upcoming events in the 14th annual “Explore the Nature of Knox County” 2015 series.

Anyone with comments or suggestions is welcome to send me an e-mail at doncomis@centurylink.net or post comments on my website or blog.

From Golf Course to Green Burial Cemetery/Nature Preserve

Kenyon College’s land trust, the Philander Chase Corporation, is turning the defunct Tomahawk Golf Course on Quarry Chapel Road, in Gambier, into a public “Kokosing Nature Preserve” with a small golf course and a “green burial” cemetery.

I love the idea because I’ve long felt that cemeteries are public nature preserves and parks.  That really hit me when I began making cremation plans at a Honolulu public cemetery as my sister, Cheryl, was dying from colon cancer.

Despite the sight of the crematorium, on each of my trips to the cemetery, before and after her death, I was unexpectedly uplifted by the wild birds in the park, including a flock of green parrots.   I bought a “Birds of Hawaii” guidebook that listed the cemetery as a primary birdwatching spot on Oahu—and the best place to see these green parrots.

I’ve also enjoyed birds at the Howard cemetery at Apple Valley.

So I enjoyed the article I read today on the trust’s purchase of the 51-acre Tomahawk Golf Course property, in the Summer 2014 issue of Kenyon’s alumni bulletin, online at "http://www1.kenyon.edu/newsdigest/bulletin/20140805kcab/".  The article states that this is one of only 3 nature conservancy cemeteries in Ohio and 42 exclusive “green burial” cemeteries in the country.  It is also the first nationally at a college or university.

The article explains that, “Green burial resumes practices of old, removing the environmental barriers of conventional burial practices and allowing the dead to ‘return to dust’…Formaldehyde, a carcinogen, is forbidden in green burial, as are concrete burial vaults and lids, which are not biodegradable.  In addition, caskets must be made of plant-based materials.”

And, the article adds that the Kokosing Nature Preserve “will be designed to reflect a naturalistic appearance with native plants…In addition, it will be protected in perpetuity, exclusively for conservation, meaning the land may never be developed.”

Landscape architect and Philander Chase Corporation trustee Stephen Christy, who graduated from Kenyon in 1971, is replacing evergreens with oaks and hickories and planting orchard grass and other pasture grasses, interspersed with black-eyed susans and asters.

A Peaceful Meadow for All

The article states that the cemetery will be ready in 2015 and that “Graves can be designated with flat, natural stone markers, though not the heavily polished headstones used in most cemeteries.  The final result will be a peaceful, natural setting ideal for walks and quiet contemplation, more closely resembling a meadow than most of today’s headstone-rowed cemeteries…Christy is still mapping the plots of the Kokosing Nature Preserve, but the property is expected to have a total of 2,000 to 4,000 spaces, making it a significant revenue source for the land trust in the coming years.”

And the article says that Snyder Funeral Homes in Mount Vernon now offers full green burial services.
According to the article, the Philander Chase Corporation has preserved more than 5,000 acres of land near the College.

As an example of other land preservation efforts by the college, the Brown Family Environmental Center has a 480-acre preserve that helps to keep the waters of the Kokosing River pristine.  And the Owl Creek Conservancy, a sister trust to the Philander Chase Corporation, has preserved nearly 2,422 acres.

How to Protect Your Land and Community Forever

Richard Stallard (far right) and Howard Gratz (middle) pass around plants during a tour of wetlands on Dan Galbraith's (in green jacket) land .  Galbraith donated conservation easements on 410 acres in an area that provides drinking water fro more than 40 percent of the people of Knox County, Ohio.  Stallard is vice president for land protection for the Owl Creek Conservancy, which acquired the easements.  Gratz, a former Conservancy trustee, is now a board adviser and volunteer easement monitor.  (Photo by Don Comis) 

Where do you go to if you'd like to protect all or part of your land or land in your neighborhood from development?  A land trust organization.

In the United States, you can find the organizations that are in your county by going to the Land Trust Alliance' wesbsite .  Click on "Find a Land Trust" and you get a map.  Click on your state and then your county and you'll find the land trusts in your county.

For example, in my current county of Knox, Ohio, there are two land trusts:  the Owl Creek Conservancy and the Philander Chase Corporation.   I joined the Owl Creek Conservancy.  Their recent 2014 annual report says that between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014, the organization worked with two landowners to complete seven conservation easements totaling 719 acres, more than another square mile of land conserved since their last annual meeting.''

Each of the landowners donated the easements in honor of a deceased loved one.  The report also cites a partnership with Kenyon College's Philander Chase Corporation to include a local 386-acre farm in the state's agricultural easement purchase program.

The report also states that since the Owl Creek Conservancy's founding in 2000, the private nonprofit organization has focused special effort on conserving land northwest of the City of Mount Vernon.  The report says that, "In addition to being prime farmland, that area is the site of the large aquifer recharge, providing drinking water for more than 40% of the population of Knox County...Five of the seven easements completed since we last met cover 410 acres within this area.  They bring our total in this area to 821 acres."

The report explains that "Conservation easements are in essence plans for the future use of land.  Land owners are legally empowered by our system of property rights to lay such plans in accord with their desires."

As an example of how the easements work, farmer Dan Galbraith granted an easement to protect two wetlands on his land from being farmed.   They are a small area of his land that should not be farmed because the wetlands have many environmental benefits including filtering possible pollutants before they reach waterways and aquifers.  Water from Galbraith's land drains into Knox Lake.


The easement carries forwarded perpetually whenever the land changes hands.

The Owl Creek Conservancy's mission is to work with landowners to conserve "farmlands, stream corridors, aquifer-and watershed-protection areas, wildlife habitats, woodlands, scenic vistas, and ecologically sensitive area of environmental, historic, and community importance."

Sometimes people think that such preservation work is against agriculture, but far from it, they work with farmers who want to preserve farmland and not let it be torn apart for business or housing complexes.

Likewise, the Philander Chase Corporation's mission is to "To preserve and maintain the farmland, open spaces, scenic views, and characteristic landscapes surrounding Kenyon College and Gambier, Ohio."

When I moved to Ohio, I felt I had abandoned my life goal of preserving 25,000-plus acres of federal and other public land where I worked in Maryland .   But, in fact, the people at the Owl Creek Conservancy helped me learn the first step in the process, contacting the land trust organizations in the counties the land sits on.

Now that I'm back in Ohio, I've become similarly protective of the green space where the Mt. Vernon Developmental Center sits, where I once also worked.  I'd hate to see that place close and have its 310 acres of varied natural habitats paved over for more stores or homes.  One of many benefits of preserving green space is also reducing vehicle traffic and Vernonview Road, which passes the Center, is already clogged.

Donating easements or land to the Owl Creek Conservancy or similar land trust not only benefits the community and the environment, but also may bring significant tax breaks to landowners.