AUBURN — A slow, misting rain on an overcast morning was the backdrop for an unusual and remarkable family reunion on a tract of forested land at the south end of Auburn, land that was split up for years and is now reunited as one protected property by the same family.

The property is now a cemetery in the forest, a place without gravestones or mowed grass, a place where cremains are buried among trees and where families and visitors can take a walk in the quiet of the woods.

Patricia Melaragno watches as her great-grandfather, William R. Harland, is laid to rest Tuesday at Life Forest Whistle Ridge in Auburn. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

It is a place of intentional spirituality and peace where buried cremains return to the soil.

On Tuesday, William R. Harland – buried at Life Forest Whistle Ridge – was finally at peace, laid to rest 85 years after he died at Oregon State Hospital. The simple ceremony was the very first since the conservation cemetery was formed and opened in May.

The cremated remains of William R. Harland were discovered in a copper canister at the Oregon State Hospital. Canister No. 2322 was one of over 3,600 canisters discovered at the former Oregon Hospital for the Insane. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Harland’s remains were cremated in Oregon in 1939 and left unclaimed in a copper canister, numbered 2322, and then forgotten. That canister, along with some 3,600 others, was stored in a nondescript room dubbed the “Room of Forgotten Souls” by a state senator who stumbled upon them during a tour of the hospital grounds in 2004.

The hospital, formerly called the Oregon Hospital for the Insane, was the backdrop for the 1975 film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The name changed in 1913, but the cremains of patients who died in the hospital between 1913 and 1971 remain stored, left unclaimed all those years.

When the hospital was operating as a psychiatric center in those early years, patients were admitted for anything from epilepsy to alcoholism, or even fanaticism and what was called senile psychosis. That psychosis was the diagnosis for Harland in 1938, a condition known today as dementia.

A FAMILY REUNION

In 2013, a volunteer genealogist began trying to connect living family members with the cremains of patients at the Oregon hospital, which were discovered in 2004. Three years later, Patricia Melaragno received a letter from Oregon State Hospital about Harland’s cremains. Suspecting it was a scam of some sort, her daughter Michelle Melaragno told her not to respond.

But after checking into the letter, they did respond and later that year received Harland’s cremains, embracing the idea of a great-grandfather, or in Michelle’s case, a great-great-grandfather who they didn’t know about.

Patricia Melaragno sprinkles dried sweet Annie flowers on her great-grandfather’s burial site Tuesday at Life Forest Whistle Ridge in Auburn. William R. Harland was laid to rest after his cremains were discovered at the Oregon State Hospital in a copper canister 85 years after he died. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

“We didn’t know him and didn’t know anything about him,” Michelle Melaragno explained after the service. “Even my other grandparents, great-grandparents that I never met, who passed before me … I’ve learned about them, and I’ve come to love them. But this is not someone we were ever told stories about. We didn’t know anything about them. We had nothing to pass on.”

What they now know is that Harland was born in England in 1862, one of seven children. The family immigrated to Oneida County in New York in the early 1860s. In 1892, Harland married in Horseshoe Bend, Idaho, and had two children. His wife passed away before 1910. By the 1920s Harland and his son had relocated to the South Beach and Newport areas of Oregon.

Harland was a farmer and carpenter all his life, but in Oregon he managed a pool hall while his son worked in the fishing industry. In the summer of 1938 Harland was admitted to the Oregon State Hospital and died there in January 1939 at the age of 76 from heart and kidney problems.

The Rev. Jessica Johansson gave the eulogy at Tuesday’s burial, saying in part, “William was one of many whose stories were lost to time, but today we have the privilege of giving him a dignified resting place and a chance for his story to be heard.”

The end-of-life doula and death educator who also participated in the ceremony, spoke of family.

“We are reminded that home is not just a physical place. Home is where family is, and William is finally home at peace.”

OPTING FOR A GREENER BURIAL

Cremation is replacing the traditional burial practice of embalming and being laid to rest in a casket because it is less expensive and more environmentally friendly. Funeralocity lists the cost of a full-service traditional funeral in Maine at $8,600, while a full-service cremation is listed at $6,200.

According to the Cremation Association of North America, the cremation rate in the U.S. is 60%, and in Canada it’s 75%. Maine is at 80%, the second highest rate of cremations across the country.

The cremated remains of William R. Harland are placed in the ground before being buried Tuesday at Life Forest Whistle Ridge in Auburn. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Another trend gaining popularity is green burial, which is burying the remains without the use of embalming fluids, a casket or other traditional burial methods, to reduce the environmental impact and carbon footprint even further. There are only a handful of cemeteries in Maine that allow green burials, which must be handled by a funeral director and within a specific time frame after death.

Most cemeteries allow the burial of cremated remains, but not all cemeteries are deed-recorded, which protects a burial site from being repurposed down the road.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention is responsible for the oversight of all new and expanded burial grounds, cemeteries, crematoria and mausolea.

LIFE FOREST WHISTLE RIDGE IS A CONSERVATION CEMETERY

The burial of Harland this week marked a new chapter for Life Forest Whistle Ridge and serves as an introduction to the community about a new option for families or individuals looking for an alternative burial of cremains.

The setting is serene, woods with Americans with Disabilities Act accessible paths, resting places and a small nameplate at each 3-by-3-foot burial site in a designated grove. Life Forest’s deed records the longitude and latitude of each plot as an amendment to the Whistle Ridge land deed, so the cemetery is protected in perpetuity with access forever and the cremains will remain undisturbed.

Mel Bennett is a co-founder of Life Forest and worked with Whistle Ridge property owner Michelle Melaragno to establish the Auburn cemetery, which is a conservation cemetery – one of only a few in Maine – and part of Maine’s open space program, which means anyone can go and walk the grounds or sit and read or commune with nature.

“What Life Forest Whistle Ridge is trying to present is an opportunity for people to have a more natural and ecological way to memorialize their loved one in a legal cemetery setup,” Bennett explained.

The burial process is quite simple, with the remains placed in a woolen shroud, placed in the plot and covered with soil. The shroud protects the soil from the acidity of the cremated remains until those remains neutralize and decompose. Multiple sets of remains can go into one plot for the same cost, which is $2,500, and it can be human or pet cremains or a combination of both.

Whistle Ridge was at one point a dairy farm, but the owners sold and left the area in the 1940s. Melaragno explains that 32 years ago she bought the first of three parcels of property the farm had been divided into. But she was concerned about preserving the land.

“This land and the land surrounding it was in jeopardy of being developed,” Melaragno said Tuesday. She explained that she has been a steward of the last 22 acres of property across from her land for 20 years, with the hope of being able to eventually purchase the final parcel. That happened last year and, with a lot of paperwork and an amendment to the city’s cemetery land requirement, she got the go-ahead to make the forested land a legal cemetery with the land protected in a conservation easement.

“This really speaks to those folks who are interested in just being returned to nature and being a part of nature forever,” Michelle Melaragno said.

Michelle Melaragno, front right, and Chelsea Eaton place the cremated remains of William R. Harland in the ground Tuesday at Life Forest Whistle Ridge in Auburn. Melaragno’s great-great-grandfather was laid to rest after his cremains were discovered at Oregon State Hospital in a copper canister. Eaton is a land steward at Life Forest. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Whistle Ridge has the benefit of a team of specialists to count on for support through the relationship with Bennett and her original Life Forest conservation cemetery, which was established in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, in 2019. The team includes a range of skills from groundskeeper to tree doctor, mapping specialist, a director of burial services, end-of-life doula and ordained interfaith minister.

You won’t find concrete or plastic flowers at Life Forest Whistle Ridge, just trees, plants, rocks, soil and water – just what you would expect to find in a forest. There’s no mowing, no mechanical tools, everything is done methodically by hand to preserve the land and forest the way it has been for decades.

For Melaragno, it is a personal achievement to preserve the undeveloped land, keeping it natural and protected forever.

“So, these three parcels that I purchased at three separate times used to be all one,” she said with a whisper of a smile. “But now, those three parcels are back together … in this day and age where all we do is slice and dice and divide and conquer, we’ve put it back together.”