Made from dust, to dust we return
In between Georgetown and Jonah lies the Our Lady of the Rosary Cemetery and Prayer Garden – an expansive cemetery with sculptures, wildflowers and wind chimes. Beyond the nature, as families choose a final resting place at 330 Berry Lane, those interested in a more eco-friendly burial can choose to go back to the earth in a green burial.
Even though Our Lady of the Rosary offers plots for traditional caskets or cremation, green burials allow loved ones to be buried without the harmful chemicals found in embalming fluids or nonbiodegradable caskets. In green burials, funeral homes or families place bodies in a biodegradable casket or shroud with no embalming fluids, concrete or metal vaults.
Our Lady of the Rosary is one of two certified green-burial cemeteries in Texas, according to the Green Burial Council.
Ellen Brumder, who founded the cemetery with her husband Nick, said providing green burials came about “spontaneously” after someone commented to her about how expensive funerals were getting.
“I said, why do you need an outer liner, there’s no need for that,” she said. “Then I called someone in the funeral industry and asked them if they would recommend it, and they said, ‘this is such a staid industry, you just go ahead and do your ideas, run them by me, but it needs renovating and renewal,’ and so we just didn’t find it any particular big deal to do that.”
Although the Brumders are Catholic, and many Catholics are buried at the cemetery, Ms. Brumder said they have people from all faiths buried there, especially since followers of Jewish, Muslim and Bahá’í faiths often seek out green burials.
During a recent Jewish burial, Ms. Brumder filled in on behalf of the cemetery for the service. She said the rituals and prayers are familiar, but she loved the ritual of stopping with the casket seven times to “show how reluctant they are to let go of the loved one.”
The cemetery won’t be full for another 10 years, Ms. Brumder said. When that time comes, she said they would look into buying some of the vacant property surrounding the cemetery.
“The cemetery is a place that we know from the Bible, where we rise from our grave, so it’s a sleeping place until that happens,” Ms. Brumder said. “The Greek word for cemetery is sleeping place, so it’s kind of beautiful to think, ‘oh, this is where we’ll greet each other one day.’ ”
Honoring loved ones with custom art
Even though Carla Diaz has her own sculpting studio at Magma Studio, it was the Brumder’s who brought her to headstone carving.
“I’ve always been a sculptor, but when I met them, all my life changed,” she said. “They’re very inspiring with their whole system. The word cemetery has been kind of dragged a little bit culturally, and everybody has like this kind of creepy connotations of [them], but this is a healing garden.”
Those who are looking for custom headstones work with artists like Ms. Diaz to come up with a design that she said helps them heal.
“They’re specifically made for the people, and that itself makes them heal much better than if you have a flat, generic-made [headstone]. These are people they love: their wives, their kids, their mothers and it’s so important for them to have something that actually signifies exactly what they feel.”
One of the recent custom headstones Ms. Diaz has been working on is for a husband and wife – Kelly and Stephen Wiley. Ms. Wiley passed in 2025, and Ms. Diaz has created matching headstones for both of them.
“I have never, never worked with a man that has loved his wife so much,” Ms. Diaz said. “When I finally send him the pictures, he will let go, and then he will begin to heal. That’s the natural process.”
Information about pricing and plot availability can be found at www.olotr.com.