Publisher: The Columbus Dispatch
Author: Spencer Hunt
Publish Date: October 12, 2009
Article Excerpt:
Deborah Atkinson did not consider herself an environmentalist, family members said, and wasn’t interested in making any statement.
But as she faced her own death from cancer, she told them that she wanted a “green funeral.” And when the 55-year-old Kroger employee died in July, her family honored her request.
Atkinson’s body was not embalmed. She was dressed in organic cotton, placed in a coffin made of recycled wood and buried without a concrete vault at Evergreen Cemetery on the North Side.
“We buried her between four trees,” said Carol McClure, Atkinson’s sister. “It was actually very pretty.”