BROOKINGS — Four years after a devastating 2022 derecho stripped Greenwood Cemetery of hundreds of its historic trees, the city’s oldest nondenominational burial ground is continuing its quiet evolution.
Atop a peaceful, tree-lined hill on the cemetery’s south side stands a new 72-niche columbarium, a modern addition designed to bridge the gap between decades-old tradition and a rising local preference for cremation.
“The traditional way is just not the traditional way anymore,” said board member Peg Pederson. “It’s really changing.”
While exact statistics are hard to pin down, Pederson estimates that the local split is shifting toward a 40-to-60 ratio of cremations to traditional burials. Furthermore, many families are choosing not to bury their loved ones right away, opting instead to take remains home until a later date.
Board member Tom Becker noted that the driving forces behind these changing attitudes center on two things: space and economics.
“‘Do I really need to take up that much space when I’m buried?’” he asked rhetorically. “People are choosing it because it’s more eco-friendly.”
From a financial standpoint, the benefits of the columbarium become clear over time. While the upfront cost of a niche is higher than buying a traditional plot, the niche includes a black granite front that serves as the permanent monument, with names and dates etched into it. Traditional ground burials require a casket, a vault and a headstone, which can quickly add thousands of dollars to the bill.
To accommodate families changing their minds, Greenwood allows plot owners to sell their traditional lots back to the cemetery at their original purchase price if they choose to transition to the columbarium. A family can keep its plot if it so desires as well, but no more than two related people can be buried together in it — such as a husband and wife or a mother and daughter.
“You have to be blood — it can’t be like a grandma and an aunt or that type of thing,” Pederson said.
Peaceful backdrop
The decision to place the new structure on the south side of the cemetery was both a practical and aesthetic choice.
“Space-wise, it was the natural place to put it, and it’s kind of on top of a hill,” Pederson said, noting the peaceful backdrop of trees.
Becker added that while other areas of the cemetery might look empty, many of those plots have already been committed to families over the decades, even if they don’t yet feature markers.
The columbarium features 72 niches, each capable of holding two sets of remains for a total capacity of 144 interments. Though installed in November 2024 at a cost of just over $60,000, no niches have been purchased yet, though local inquiry and interest are growing.
“We know it’s a long-term investment,” Becker said. “Once people start to see it and be aware of it, it’ll be used more.”
Furthermore, if demand mirrors the rising cremation trends, the structure is designed to be easily expanded.
Derecho’s aftermath
The modern addition stands in stark contrast to the recovery work across the rest of the cemetery. The May 2022 derecho fundamentally altered Greenwood’s landscape, taking down a canopy that had existed for decades.
“It looks really bare. We’ve had people that are sad because now they say it looks like a cemetery,” Pederson said with a slight laugh.
Becker recalled how lush and shaded the grounds used to feel in the summer.
“There were just so many trees in and among the cemetery and among the markers that it was beautiful,” he said. “It was shady and it felt cool in the summer because of all the shade — but it was also just completely devastated, a big part of it, during the derecho.”
The recovery has been a costly, labor-intensive battle involving countless volunteer hours to remove stumps, haul logs, and haul in black dirt for reseeding. Because the cemetery relies entirely on natural rainfall rather than an irrigation system, restoring the grass has been a slow process.
As for the trees, the board does not plan to replant them inside the burial sections. Over the decades, unregulated tree planting by grieving families resulted in massive root systems that sometimes grew to heave and crack historic headstones.
“In past years or decades, the restrictions were a little looser, the oversight was a little looser,” Becker explained. “Someone was buried, and they liked a certain type of tree; people might come out and just plant a tree right there. It’s small and it’s nice, and it grows, but eventually the roots get big and they grow and it starts to move things.”
He continued, “It can do some damage to markers. So, some of those are really way, way too close, and you can see the impact that they’ve had on some of the gravesites of people.”
Even as it modernizes, Greenwood is keeping its oldest history close. As a nondenominational cemetery, the grounds include a potter’s field for the unmarked graves of historic travelers and those without family.
In keeping with that tradition of dignity, the new columbarium includes an internal section specifically designated to respectfully inter the remains of individuals who died in the area with no known next of kin.
Looking ahead, Becker said there’s a path leading up to the columbarium, along with landscaping. In the future, benches will be installed.
“If people want to come and sit for a while where their loved one is interred, they have a place to sit and think,” he said. “That would make it a little more of a pleasant, welcoming place.”
— Contact Mondell Keck at [email protected].
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