Rural setting is backdrop for unique cemetery in Sedgwick County
A unique cemetery will soon offer a peaceful place to rest that at times looks and sounds like it did when wagons rolled across the vast Kansas prairie.
Prairie Home Scattering Garden, in a rural part of Sedgwick County between Derby and Rose Hill, opens soon with the aim of offering an affordable and remote place for people wanting to bury their loved ones.
The cemetery and almost all of the contiguous land around it were gifted in 2003 to two nonprofits by Raymond Fleming Jr., an oil and gas investor who died in 2015.
One of the non-profits, Sunflower Land Trust, specializes in land conservation. The other, Breakthrough — Episcopal Social Services, aims to help people in poverty and suffering with mental illnesses.
The two have partnered to ensure affordable burials in a place that will continue to look mostly untouched even after thousands of people are buried there.
“If you go out there and it’s morning or evening, you are gonna feel like you stepped back almost 100 years,” Sunflower Land Trust CEO Jim Michael said.
Some homes near the cemetery and traffic rolling down 79th Street can interrupt some of the quaintness, but Michael said at times, when human life is moving slower, the sound and sights of nature dominate the landscape.
And the plan is to keep it as remote-feeling as possible.
There won’t be any large funerals or invasive flowers. Instead of leaving flowers, it’s encouraged to donate toward having mounds built and adorned with pollinating flowers that are native to Kansas and will attract birds and butterflies.
The site also won’t have any large headstones breaking up the horizon. Only flat headstones, with the option of burying your loved one’s ashes in eco-friendly pouches, and the scatterings of ashes will be allowed. Pets ashes can also be scattered, for a smaller fee.
Michael said he believes it is the first cremation-only cemetery in Kansas.
Cremation-only cemetery
Cremations are more popular than traditional burials in Kansas, according to Kansas Funeral Directors Association Executive Director Pam Scott.
Scott said the majority switch to cremations happened a few years ago. Affordability and more mobile lifestyles may have contributed to the move to cremations, she said.
Cremations surpassed traditional burials in Sedgwick County in 2015, according to Kansas Department of Health and Environment data from 2010 to 2020. More than 58% of people who died in Sedgwick County in 2020 were cremated, the data shows.
Cremations offer a more affordable alternative to traditional burials. A cremation, flat headstone and private funeral at Prairie Home Scattering Garden cost less than $3,500, Michael said.
The national median cost of a funeral with a viewing and burial in 2019 was $7,640, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.
Ashley Cozine, president of Wichita-based Cozine Memorial Group, said flat headstones started to become popular in the 1950s. Often memorial parks are made up of flat headstones, he said.
In Wichita, the landscape of Resthaven Gardens of Memory is dominated by flat headstones.
Cozine, the past president of both the Kansas and National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), said he didn’t know of any cremation-only cemeteries in Kansas, but knows of some elsewhere.
The NFDA projects cremations to gain even more in popularity, with about 70% of people being cremated by 2030.
Rural setting
Conservation work on the donated land has helped re-establish streams, Michael said. The six-acre cemetery will be mowed, but some of the adjoining property, filled with brome, will be hayed.
A dedication ceremony with clergy and a Native American blessing was conducted amid high winds recently.
It was one of the final steps before the land becomes the final resting place for people’s loved ones. Michael is just awaiting paperwork from the state, which he expects in the next couple of weeks, before opening up the cemetery.
For more information about the cemetery and the services offered, visit prairiehomescatteringgarden.com.