About us
A home funeral ritual is not a new concept – generations before us cared for their dead at home.
The Threshold Care Circle was created to help families rediscover the traditional folkways of a home vigil and family-directed funeral. By guiding families through the home funeral process, we offer them the tools and confidence to take the time they need to grieve in a familiar environment. Within the comfort of home, family members experience less fear of death and they are free to mourn in a simple way that deeply honors this profound experience.
We believe that the funeral choices people make today will influence attitudes toward death for generations to come. Our work is part of a social movement toward more conscious and meaningful end-of-life rituals.
The Threshold Care Circle (TCC) was formed in January of 2006 in Viroqua,Wisconsin. We came together to educate and train ourselves in caring for the dead at home. Members of our group have received training from JerriGrace Lyons of Final Passages, Linda Bergh, and Nancy Poer.
TCC exists as a community network and resource for Southwestern Wisconsin. Our mission is to educate individuals and families who wish to care for their own at the time of death, according to their spiritual and/or cultural beliefs, in ways that honor the one who is crossing the threshold and the surviving loved ones. We provide educational materials, group presentations and family consultations that prepare and empower individuals and the community to care for their dead at home, enabling them to carry out a home or family-directed funeral, with or without the services of a funeral director.
Threshold Care Circle Core Group
Sherri Amos moved to Viroqua from Madison after retirement from the City of Madison and now works at Viroqua Food Coop. Having an interest in how our society engages with end of life rituals, Sherri recently found her way to the Threshold Care Circle and is honored to be learning how to navigate home funerals and green burials from TCC’s longtime members.
Denise Benoit is a retired information systems analyst, a weaver, folk musician, gardener, community organizer and new member of Threshold Care Circle and Driftless Green Burial Allaince. She’s currently assisting with some research and administrative roles, and is also keen to share our information about natural and meaningful after death alternatives by becoming an educator for home funerals and natural burial options.
Kathy Doerfer is a home funeral and green burial educator and was a founding member of the Threshold Care Circle. She is profoundly grateful for the revival of the traditional practices of caring for our own after death. She believes that these simple acts of love and care add meaning and depth to our experience of being human and understands from personal experience the significance of knowing what options are available when tending our loved ones who have died. She envisions a cultural shift in which this sacred work is once again integrated into family and community life. Kathy is especially interested in seeing a green cemetery established in the Coulee Region.
Charlene Elderkin is a Certified Music Practitioner, providing bedside therapeutic music with harp and voice. She is also a hospice volunteer, home funeral educator, writer, and speaker. By day she is the marketing and membership manager of the Viroqua Food Co-op. Charlene co-wrote My Final Wishes with Kathy Neidert, an advanced funeral planning book. Charlene published a book,Where the Tree Falls, the Forest Rises: Stories of Death and Renewal.
Liz Franklin is an administrator and educator and was one of the founding members of the Threshold Care Circle. Her experience with dying family members and her work in schools and abroad has profoundly influenced her views on death and life in America. She is grateful for the opportunity to re-acquaint families with the healing work of caring for the dead. Liz currently does administrative support for the Driftless Folk School and Thoreau College.
Tracy Mangold joined Threshold Care Circle in 2013 with a passion to share information that empowers people in their choices regarding home vigil and family directed funeral. It is my understanding that when we hold the sacred-knowing of our death closely, it changes the way we walk upon the earth. I bring my experience as a community herbalist to Threshold Care Circle workshops by teaching ways to support ourselves in caring for our beloveds through death and dying as well as in our journeys with grief. As a therapeutic musician, I use the elements of music and sound in relation to various patient conditions, including the numinous transition of the dying process. At the other end of the spectrum, I operate and teach in a nature based school for young children in my home.
Susan Nesbit
Susan’s passion for end-of-life care began in 2004 after she had the honor of sitting at the bedside of her dying friend, Freddi. The following year she became a hospice volunteer & helped to co-found the Threshold Care Circle & the Driftless Green Burial Alliance. In 2019 Susan attended the Conscious Dying Institute in Boulder, CO for official training as an end-of-life doula. She then entered the Sacred Art of Living and Dying Center completing The Art of Living and Dying one-year program, followed by a two-year Anam Cara (“soul friend”) apprenticeship. Susan is excited to be a part of the “death positive” movement & believes it is time to revolutionize current end-of-life care practices.
TCC volunteers are: Sherri Amos, Denise Benoit, Kathy Doerfer, Charlene Elderkin, Liz Franklin, Maks Kopish, Ashley Kiehnau, Tracy Mangold, Susan Nesbit, and Kim Wahl.
TCC core group (2023)
We are located at 500 E. Jefferson St., Rm 202, Viroqua, WI 54665
