River View Cemetery, Portland, Ore. (Photo by Jamie Francis)
Posted on 08/08/2007 9:34:42 AM PDT by Incorrigible
River View Cemetery, Portland, Ore. (Photo by Jamie Francis) |
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PORTLAND, Ore. — If you wanted to be crass about it, you might explain River View Cemetery's dilemma this way: People just aren't dying to get in there anymore.
They're still dying, of course. But more and more, particularly on the West Coast, consumers are choosing cremation over burial.
That slow, steady change in the market — in the works for several decades — has cemeteries scrambling for new ways to turn a profit or ensure they can pay for future maintenance.
In River View's case, the cemetery's board of trustees wants to turn 120 acres of vacant graveyard land into houses, apartments or perhaps an annex to Lewis & Clark College. They note that at the current rate, it would take 400 years to use up all the potential grave sites at one of the city's premier historic burial grounds.
"This is a very traditional business,'' says David Noble, the cemetery's executive director. "But it's like anything else: Markets change and you adjust.''
Forty years ago, fewer than 5 percent of Americans who died opted for cremation. In 1987, it was 15 percent. This year, more than 32 percent of U.S. deaths will end in cremation, and the experts at the Cremation Association of North America expect the national total to pass 50 percent within 25 years.
Perhaps it's the "Six Feet Under'' factor — more people are thinking about how they want to go. It certainly helps that several religions, most notably the Roman Catholic Church, have decided in the past few decades that cremation is an acceptable alternative.
"You can talk about sex and all that stuff, but really death used to be the taboo topic,'' says Bob Fells, external chief operating officer for the International Cemetery and Funeral Association.
That's changed, Fells says, as baby boomers have begun to bury their parents.
"They're giving Mom and Dad what they want: traditional funerals and memorials,'' he says. "But as they do, they're becoming well-educated consumers about this, and they're thinking, 'Well, maybe I want something different.'''
Cremations are generally cheaper, starting at about $1,500 compared with the $6,000 or so you'll shell out for a basic burial. Many people also consider them more environmentally friendly. And they provide a dead person's loved ones more flexibility about how and when to memorialize.
The procedure can be boiled down to this stark reality: four hours at 1,600 degrees.
It is even more popular in Oregon than it is nationwide. Sixty-five percent of Oregonians who die will choose cremation this year.
"On the West Coast, we're more transient, so it makes sense. You don't want to make arrangements at a place and then have to change to somewhere else if you move,'' says Ty Cochrane, general manager of Belcrest Memorial Park in Salem, Ore., and a board member of the Cemetery Association of Oregon. "Plus, we're more outdoorsy.''
The rise in cremations has affected every aspect of the "death industry.'' Some funeral homes now sell urns alongside coffins and rent out space for business meetings, reunions and even weddings. For those who opt for cremation, many mortuaries will organize the same types of events they offer people who choose burials — a viewing of the body beforehand.
Cemeteries have an even tougher sell to make. Most now offer some version of a "cremation garden,'' where urns can be buried or ashes legally scattered. Despite the freedom with which many people scatter their loved ones on bodies of water or in state and federal parks, there are actually strict laws about where cremains can be placed.
Cemeteries lucky enough to have spare land — and even some without — are looking at other uses for their real estate or other options for customers.
River View has adjusted. The cemetery now offers sites for burying urns, a "Wall of Remembrance'' where families can memorialize people whose ashes are scattered, and bronze- and glass-fronted "inurnment niches'' in its mausoleum.
Despite those modern touches, River View has been around a while.
A group of prominent Portlanders founded the cemetery in 1882 as a nonprofit on more than 220 acres of rolling green hills. The list of longtime inhabitants reads like a Portland street map — Ladd, Terwilliger, Pittock, Corbett and Failing, among others. The basic architectural style tends toward the kind of grandiose gothic display that boomers and their children avoid: large granite obelisks and above-ground crypts, broad gray tombstones mottled with black by the years.
As a final resting place, this would be hard to beat. Beyond the birds, the only sound in the cemetery on one recent sunny morning was the soft panting of a neighbor out for his morning jog and the steady whick-whick-whick of sprinklers. In the few spots that weren't shaded by large firs and oaks, the tree line opened up to offer stellar views of Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood.
Plenty of prime spots are still available. And that's the problem.
Noble estimates that the cemetery association sells 225 graves a year. He expects that to be halved by 2021.
The cemetery now uses about 37 acres with expansion plans for 62 more acres, according to papers filed with the city. That leaves 120 acres, some of it down hard-to-reach slopes, that will probably never be needed.
Making a profit isn't an issue here. But maintaining the cemetery takes time and money. Right now, the cemetery's endowment sits at several million dollars. The financial reality is that upkeep costs will probably stay steady even as the number of burials each year drops.
The cemetery's board of trustees wants to let a developer find another use for all or part of that extra land.
Some neighbors have balked, arguing that turning any of the cemetery's property over to developers would dramatically change the feel of their quiet community.
Cemetery leaders and their lawyer say the myriad land use laws enacted since the graveyard was created — a time when there were no restrictions on how the property could be used — have cost them between $17 million and $24 million.
That's a lot more money than you can make burying people, especially as fewer and fewer people opt to wind up underground.
(Anna Griffin is a staff writer for The Orgonian of Portland, Ore. She can be contacted at annagriffin(at)news.oregonian.com.)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
Actually, you said “poorly Catechised,” and I inadvertantly changed it.
I guess my thing is that if the Church permits it (with the noted qualification), then as far as a good Catholic is concerned, it’s permitted, history notwithstanding.
Historically, some Church officials may have condemned the practice without qualification - but then, some Church officials approved of the live cremation of “heretics,” too, so historical backdrop is of limited import.
By a claymore mine.
“Slowly decaying isn’t much better, if you’re conscious of what’s going on.”
What’s that smell?!
Memorializing and archiving family information and stories and facts is all moving, like all information, to the internet. That way, you can have a centralized family “plot” even if you are cremated and scattered in the ocean, your great grandfather is buried in Ireland and your Mother is in an urn in California.
I have always loved the beauty of cemeteries and yet, felt the stories of the people were hopelessly hidden. It no longer has to be that way!
We discuss these issues and more at InRepose, and offer multimedia online memorials too.
By the way, there is a facinating new form of reducing the body to ash in a cleaner way, its called resomation. See my blog post here:
http://inrepose.typepad.com/in_repose_blog/2007/08/resomation-is-n.html
tradition vs Tradition. I’d just as soon be cremated - on Ash Wednesday we’re told that we are dust. I can just get to that state a little faster. I trust God will know how to put me back together!
My father-in-law and brother-in-law are Southern Baptist pastors. They believe that cremation is fine, as long as the remains are either stored, buried or scattered with respect.
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