Business scatters ashes in wild

MISSOULA – It started, this sense of nature as a spiritual refuge, early in Frances Coover’s life.

As a child, it was the simple pleasures, surprises and wonder. Slowly, though, the sights of wildness merged with the feeling of wildness to create inside Coover a sacred landscape nearly as real as wilderness itself.

“It became a thing I couldn’t do without,” she said. “It became a sort of outdoor sanctuary. If I couldn’t be there literally, I carried it inside.”

Decades later, Frances Coover still carries the precious cargo of wildness. But now she carries something equally as beloved and profound – the ashes of the dead. And she carries them to the wild.

In doing so, Coover is staking a place inside a business she has long mistrusted – the industry of burying the dead.

“I became sort of radicalized about this in college from a consumer perspective and it’s something that really stuck with me,” she said. “The expense, the chemicals, all of it. Obviously, it’s not something I ever saw myself being a part of.”

Perhaps “part of” is too strong a characterization. Perhaps “antithesis” would be a better word for what Coover has planned under the unassuming business name of Ladies in White.

“You can’t get around it – what we’re doing is burying people, but it’s not being done in the traditional manner,” she said. “We are returning people to the earth from whence they came. That is what many societies have done for centuries.”

Thus, for an industry known for its funereal men in black, Coover launched Ladies in White.

“For those who have chosen cremation and who love this earth we call home, Ladies in White offers a way to be joined with a place of special beauty at life’s end,” the new company’s Web site states. “On one- or two-day journeys, the Ladies carry ashes into the Montana wilderness and other forest areas for scattering. Following each scattering journey, Ladies in White makes a donation toward the preservation of our nation’s wild lands.”

It’s a simple, if curious and out-of-the mainstream, business proposition. For money – much less money than you would pay for a funeral and traditional burial – Ladies in White will take cremated remains into the Montana woods and mountains.

The women make sure the ashes are off the main trail, in an area unlikely to be disturbed except by wildlife.

They will not leave monuments, flowers or any other sign of their visit. They will, however, photograph the site, making sure to picture a prominent landmark should the dead’s family ever like to visit. They’ll also provide a GPS coordinate.

Coover came to her new business by a circuitous path. She studied at Kalamazoo College, then enrolled in a master’s program in early childhood education. That led to a career with Montessori schools. But later, she ended up working with the elderly in a program at the University of Montana called “Promoting Excellence in End of Life Care.”

“I guess I covered both ends of the age spectrum,” she said.

Then, maybe seven or eight years ago, she attended a memorial service that ended with a request to help scatter the person’s ashes. Coover couldn’t do it.

“My feet were stuck to the ground,” she said. “I couldn’t put my hand in the ashes. I didn’t like having that fear. I wasn’t proud of myself.”

Yet Coover saw a beauty in what was happening. Her friend’s ashes settled lightly on a beautiful hillside, where they would be absorbed into the soil.

That beauty combined with Coover’s disdain for traditional American burial services.

Coover doesn’t want to be in the business of telling people what to do with their dead relatives. She just wants to offer an alternative.

“We just want to stand in the shoes of our client families and do what they want to have done,” she said. “We want to be a comfort without being too much of a financial burden.”

They are, literally, Ladies in White. Coover and the friends she’s enlisted to help her wear all white when they walk into the woods. It’s simply a way to make a counteroffer to funeral black. They wear clothes they’ve made, found or been sent.

Coover said she believes most of the business that will come to Ladies in White will likely come from out-of-state residents who visited Montana and fell in love. They would like to have their ashes scattered here, but can’t really make the logistics work.

That’s where the Ladies in White will step in.

“We are simply an extension of the family, doing what they can’t do for themselves,” she said.

In gearing up to debut her business, Coover did all the necessary research about permits and potential legal problems. One problem that blindsided her has turned out to be one of the bigger issues – the U.S. Forest Service doesn’t permit the scattering of ashes on land it manages. She had been informed by several Forest Service personnel, who weren’t aware of the rule, that scattering on national forest land was “perfectly legal.” But it’s not.

Other land agencies, including the national parks, have their own regulations. But for now, the Forest Service doesn’t allow ash scattering.

Still, Coover wants to do everything above board, and that means, at least for now, she won’t scatter ashes on Forest Service land. She plans to use primarily land under the control of the Bureau of Land Management, working under the conditions of a special use permit.

“I need for everything to be perfectly legal, as we don’t want families to be involved in anything that might cause a problem in the future,” she said.