Getting “laid to rest” is a two part process. There is preparing you and there is the ground you go into. Yesterday I covered the ground you go into part with Roselawn Cemetery which is a dated term I suppose but it is what I know. Today we take a look at the services that get you there. Jenn Bormann is with Butler Funeral Home and she was at Earth Awareness Fest with Clada Parker. They had with them a woven willow casket complete with a basket style top and an optional silk liner. Wow is all I can say. A casket you could leak out of, that is a very winning concept! Sorry I probably wasn’t supposed to say that but I am a loud mouth sometimes. Anyway I found this story about them in the SJR and I will put up their website as well. I did not want to just copy text from their website, because that is way to commercial for this nonprofit.

http://www.kirlin-egan-butler.com/

http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x155906923/Tim-Landis-Butler-Funeral-Home-gets-green-certification

Tim Landis: Butler Funeral Home gets ‘green’ certification

Not only is it possible to go green. Among the newer trends in the funeral home business is going out green.

BUTLER FUNERAL HOMES and ROSELAWN MEMORIAL PARK of Springfield have obtained certification from the national Green Burial Council for sustainable funeral and cemetery practices, eco-friendly products and even organic snacks at the wake.

Butler is getting in early on the green-certification trend as far as central Illinois goes, but president Chris Butler said he expects others to follow.

“Some of this includes elements people are already asking for. They just don’t call it ‘green,’” Butler said of practices that include non-toxic embalming fluids or no embalming at all, using only natural stone, limiting loss of natural habitat, biodegradable caskets, burial shrouds instead of caskets and use of renewable products.

Butler Funeral Homes Inc. is among the city’s older businesses. Forerunner funeral homes date to 1893.

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Go there and read. More tomorrow.

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