Elizabeth Fournier

Author / Undertaker / Funeral Home Owner

Elizabeth Fournier began her career in 1990 in Portland, where she was employed as the live-in night keeper, sleeping in a trailer in a Portland, Oregon cemetery. Thirty-two years later, she is a one-woman funeral service in the rural town of Boring, Oregon. Elizabeth owns and operates Cornerstone Funeral Services where she is affectionately known as “The Green Reaper” for her green burial advocacy. She is also the Manager of Historic Columbian Cemetery, Portland's newest green burial choice.

Elizabeth is the author of The Green Burial Guidebook: Everything You Need to Plan an Affordable, Environmentally Friendly Burial. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Green Burial Council and is a member of their speaker’s bureau. She recently gave a TEDx talk called, "Going Green: The Last Act of Environmental Volunteerism." Elizabeth was part of the very first Natural Organic Reduction (human composting) at Herland Forest in Washington back in 2020. People Magazine wrote, “Elizabeth Fournier is doing her part to change the way Americans bury their dead.”