By JEREMY MOULE
Messenger Post Staff
Posted: Sep 5, 01:00 AM EDT

The cemetery is one of only a few burial grounds to incorporate a trail in the entire country.

PERINTON – What started as an idea to help preserve 50 acres of forest on its property has made White Haven Memorial Park a pioneer of sorts.

In 2004, the Marsh Road cemetery debuted its nature trail – a manicured section that meanders through a conifer grove and features manmade brooks and waterfalls. White Haven is the first cemetery in the eastern part of the country to have such a feature and one of a handful at best across the United States.

“It’s going to be a whole new way of making cemeteries,” said Andrea Vittum, White Haven’s president.

But it’s also an extension of the memorial park approach. The style, started by Forest Lawn in Glendale, Calif., around the start of the 1900s, favored flat markers over tombstones. Well-kept lawns, trees and flowers were meant to remind people of life rather than dwell on death.

The idea for the trail started in 1999, according to Vittum. White Haven staff and officials wanted to find a way to preserve at least some forest acreage in the rear of the property. There was some talk of developing a state trail through the forest and tying that in to other nearby trails. They even talked to Assemblyman David Koon of Fairport about it, but the idea never materialized.

White Haven Memorial Park on Marsh Road is pioneering the idea of a nature trail that is also a place for the burial of cremated remains. The plots are marked by rocks or tree stumps with plaques on them. Shown is the cemetery’s new Forest Trail area, which was recently dedicated.

Then, a keen awareness that often, families liked to scatter the ashes of cremated loved ones in nature sparked a different idea. It was from that the idea to create a nature trail for the burial of cremated remains was born.

“We said maybe we could accomplish two things at once,” Vittum said.

The nature trail was started in 2004. It’s in the rear of memorial park and is available for the burial of cremated remains only.

Recently, the memorial park opened a new extension of the trail, this time with a path meandering through the forest itself. There’s a waterfall, a wood-chip path, and a wood bridge overlooking a mile of Irondequoit Creek. Deer and wild turkey roam the wooded acres and frequently pop up along the trail, said Peggy Albright, a memorial counselor.

It creates a quiet, scenic spot in White Haven that people can go and reflect when they come to visit a loved one, even if the person isn’t buried along the trail, Albright said.

“We’re very proud of this,” she said.

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