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Warren Prairie Sanctuary
Our Purpose
Warren Prairie Sanctuary, Inc. provides an environmentally sustainable form of interment, where the body is returned to the earth to decompose naturally and support the regeneration of new life.
We also are dedicated to environmental education, establishing community, providing resources, networking, and family support to all who are interested in an alternative to conventional burial processes.
To bring about these goals, WPS focuses on limiting burial density, enhancing natural aesthetics, and providing an enlightened, comforting, and meaningful experience for all participants and visitors.
Our Community
Warren Prairie Sanctuary aims to nurture community and deepen our connection with nature through conservation burial and sustainable deathcare. We value the integrity, diversity and unity of all creation.
In providing resources & compassionate guidance, we aim to support our community as we seek to understand our responsibilities in the natural world.
The Cemeprairie
The WPS prairie, as known as The Cemeprairie, is a natural native Indiana prairie. The Cemeprairie sits within a larger prairie on a rise above an oxbow of the Big Pine Creek. Forested bluffs lead down to the creek along the north side. It is breathtaking in natural beauty with Indiana native woodland and prairie plant species.
Our practices for green burial allow only natural materials. The prairie is briefly disturbed for the opening and closing of the grave and quickly recovers to a native mix of prairie species.
WPS provides ecological stewardship to the conservation burial grounds. This stewardship may include, but is not limited to, the use of prescribed fire, removal of invasive and non-native species, planting of native species, manipulation of soils and water and drainage, planting of vegetation, or any other practice necessary to assure the ecological integrity of the prairie.
WPS is responsible for opening and closing the grave, ensuring vital soil health and minimal disruption. However, we encourage family and friends to aid in the opening of the grave, as well as be pallbearers, assist in lowering the body, and fill the grave layers with pine boughs, prairie grass, and soil.
For each burial, Warren Prairie Sanctuary, Inc. agrees to:
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Provide burial plot
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Determine and aid in the selection of the burial plot.
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Open and close the grave site
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Authenticate, identify and maintain appropriates record of grave site locations.
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Provide Receipt of Payment
Cost of Services:
Burial of a body: $1450 USD
Burial of cremains: $350 USD
Additional costs to be considered for burial at the Cemeprairie include: biodegradable burial container (shroud, casket, or urn), body transport via funeral director (required in Indiana).
WPS Board Members
Warren Prairie Sanctuary is run by a board of Indiana residents from a variety of backgrounds. Each member is dedicated to WPS through their connection to natural burial, sustainable deathcare, and the Indiana prairie.
India Gilham-Westerman
President
India is a casket weaver, boatbuilder, craftsman, willow farmer, and polyculturist. They own RiverStyx Willow, a farm and business that grows and cultivates materials for sustainble craft, with a focus on burial products and community deathcare.
They are committed to a supportive and inclusive deathcare community and believe that our choices in death should be allowed to reflect the principles by which we live. And that bodily autonomy is paramount in life, death, and our transition in between.
India resides in Tippecanoe County and occasionally participates in activities unrelated to deathcare, boats, and trees.
Dana Goodman
Sexton
Midwest Indiana has been Dana’s home his whole life. While bicycling in the southwest in his early twenties, he realized that the hardwoods and humidity of Indiana are in his blood.
Partnering with Kathleen Kitch 40 years ago led him into raising kids, creating art glass, gardening, and community building in a magical spot in Warren County where the Big Pine Creek slowly wears away the sandstone bluffs along the creek.
As a sexton for the Warren Prairie Sanctuary, Dana manages the care of the cemeprairie ground as he guides the burial process, including grave digging, with families.
Karen Atcheson
Secretary
Karen Atcheson has been involved in conserving the land that surrounds Warren Prairie Sanctuary for the last 20+ years, and is thrilled that the cemeprairie has been established, giving people an important option for burial that honors and helps protect our beautiful watershed.
She is both a veterinarian and Family Nurse Practitioner and is also involved with youth in Greater Lafayette through Tippecanoe CASA.
She and her husband John live on the edge of West Lafayette where they grow some food and tend goats and chickens. They also love hiking, participating in the life of their Quaker Meeting, and spending time with family and friends.
Hunt Wiley
Treasurer
Hunt Wiley joined the WPS board in 2019 as part of his interest in conservation and sustainable thinking.
Hunt retired in 2018 from a career in commercial plant breeding in the seed industry and is focusing his energy on WPS and other sustainability-based effort like NICHES and the Big Pine Watershed Association. He also is pursuing innovative ideas towards improving agriculture as a consultant and researcher and contributes his business experience as a useful tool in the development of WPS.
Hunt and his wife, Gail, live on a 30ac woods alongside the beautiful Big Pine Creek about 4mi downstream from the WPS cemeprairie.
John Schumann
Board Member
John is a founding member of Warren Piece, LLC. He graduated from Purdue in 1980 with a BS in Horticulture with a design option and started a design/build landscape construction and remodeling company, which he owned and operated until 2018.
In 2017, at the age of 66, John started the MSW program at the Indiana School of Social Work and received an MSW in 2020. He has been a practicing LSW ever since and , specializes in addiction and mental health.
John has also served on the boards of the West Side Food Coop for 4 years, Tippco Soccer Club for 8 years and NAMI board for 6 years.
John's hobbies include gardening, raising goats, sheep and chickens, and playing basketball.
Anne Pigman
Board Member
Anne Pigman has a passion for end-of-life and grief care, believing everyone deserves to be supported during these challenging and sacred times in our lives.
Anne has worked for Hospice since 2004, for several years providing spiritual care for patients and their families. She is currently a Hospice Bereavement Coordinator, providing grief support and guidance for those who have lost a loved one.
Anne also has a deep love and appreciation for nature, having moved from the city to Warren County in 2003. She and her family live in the country, love Big Pine Creek and enjoy kayaking, swimming and hiking with friends. She and her husband, Tom, also take in beautiful scenic drives on their motorcycle.
For Anne, Warren Prairie Sanctuary is a wonderful opportunity to honor the circle of life that we are all a part of, bringing together the sanctity of life and the sacredness of death in such a profound and natural way.
Izzy Jackson-Rhodes
Board Member
Izzy was born shortly after the start of the new millennium to a father that took them camping as soon as they could carry their own pack, and began teaching about the importance of conservation even sooner. Watching their father butcher game and giving all found roadkill a “proper burial”- at Izzy’s insistence- meant that they were exposed to the concept of death from a very early age.
A sudden death in the family just before Izzy turned 11 and the subsequent scramble their family was in to find the funds for disposition was the catalyst that first caused Izzy to question the systems that we have in place for caring for our dead. This would lead Izzy to the reinvigorated movement for alternative dispositions- both new and old- and funeral care.
Izzy would go on to complete a degree in Mortuary Science from Worsham College in 2023 and obtain their Funeral Director/Embalmer’s license in the state of Indiana. They also hold an Indiana Life Insurance Producer’s license, and a crematory operators certification in both flame and water cremation. Izzy’s interest in the alternative funeral sphere has also led them to obtain death doula training and funeral celebrant certification.
As a person working to reconnect with their indigenous heritage, land stewardship is in Izzy’s DNA. Supporting the work and vision of Warren Prairie Sanctuary allows Izzy to support land stewardship while utilizing their understanding of and experience in the traditional funeral industry to work within the existing system for now. They are also a sitting board member of the National Home Funeral Alliance, where they support NHFA's mission of furthering awareness of community-based models of deathcare.
