Barbara Ann “Froggy” Zahn, 81, of Madison, passed away peacefully on June 5, 2025 in Middleton, Wis. due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
Barb was born on May 19, 1944 in Sturgeon Bay, Wis. As a child, she was adventurous and independent. She never wore makeup, was rarely seen in a dress and once wore a Hopalong Cassidy cowboy outfit to Sunday school. Hers was a world of forts, tree climbing, boxing kids in the neighborhood, outdoor games, sports and playing her cornet. Up until a few years ago she could still recite the starting lineup of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves.
She grew up attending Hope Congregational Church and graduated from Sturgeon Bay High School in 1962. Barb and Tom Mickelson were high school sweethearts and were married in 1966 in Sturgeon Bay. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she majored in physical education and minored in English, ultimately graduating from San Jose State in 1967.
After graduation, Barb taught physical education at Hampton High School in Virginia; remedial English in State College, Penn., and behind-the-wheel driver’s instruction in Chicago.
Barb and Tom moved to Madison in 1976 to raise their two sons, Matthew and Carl. In 1984, she became a counselor at Rebos House in Madison where she provided one-on-one counseling to women struggling with alcohol and drug addiction. Later, she worked for the UW-Madison Summer Music Clinic where she assisted in publicity, reporting and curriculum.
On September 26, 1992, Barb married Ann Elizabeth Rifenberg, the love of her life, in Madison. At that time Barb added new children to her world, Elizabeth, Peter and Laura.
In 1991, Barb was hired as a church secretary at Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ where she had also been a member since 1976. In the early 2000s, she began working at the UW-Madison law school's Innocence Project. She retired in 2010 after worsening memory loss problems.
Barb was an athlete and a competitor. When she was 16, she won the Door County Downhill and Slalom Ski championship at Potawatomi State Park. As an adult she played city league softball and basketball and coached youth soccer. After getting sober in 1980 she began jogging. She ran about seven miles every day until 2010 when her knees told her to knock it off. She ran her first marathon at the age of 56 in Chicago and went on to run two more, plus one Madison Half Marathon. She spent countless hours biking with friends and family around Madison’s lakes, the Military Ridge Trail and all over Door County. She loved to golf, play tennis and kayak.
She was a passionate and gifted musician. She played the cornet and trumpet and was in the ORUCC handbell choir and a variety of community bands including: The Glenwood Moravian Trombone Choir, the Edgewood College Community Band, the Madison Brass Band, the Peninsula Symphonic Band and sang with the Circle Singers. Her musical tastes were eclectic, but she especially enjoyed brass bands, classical (Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart were favorites), jazz, musicals (The Sound of Music and West Side Story), R&B and rock n roll.
Barb was vehemently anti-war and backed social justice and women’s movements and unions. She was a feminist and a lifelong Democrat. She went to Washington D.C., in 1993 to participate in the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. In 1992 she was the focus of a Capital Times article about going public with her sexual orientation as part of an educational effort within the UCC church.
“I’m a lesbian. I’m happy. And I am trying to let people know that gay people are human beings like everyone else,” she said. “There are far too many young people growing up with this struggle killing themselves.”
Barb loved to take showers, swear, chop wood, pull weeds, spread mulch, stare at Lake Michigan, sweat, watch police crime dramas, eat M&Ms and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and pick up trash on hikes. She drank exactly 4 million gallons of Diet Coke in her lifetime. She was inseparable from her yellow lab, Eleanor. At one time, when they lived in the town of Springdale, Barb and Ann owned nine indoor/outdoor cats. Barb’s sense of humor was legendary. She laughed a lot and tried to make people laugh – often at inappropriate times. As a child she once painted the phrase “Ed Gein was here” on a puppet stage in her home.
Throughout her life, Barb struggled with depression and anxiety and her openness about her own struggles helped many others work through theirs.
Barb’s love will live on in the hearts of her wife, Ann, with whom she shared 33 years of marriage; son Carl Mickelson (Heidi Marzen) of Madison, daughter Elizabeth DeLamater (Bill Sallak) of Green Bay; sons Matt Mickelson (Cathy Hummel) of Durham, N.C., and Peter Delameter of Las Vegas, Nev., and daughter Laura Delamater of Oregon, Wis.; sister Carolyn Zahn-Waxler (Morris Waxler) of Madison; former husband Tom Mickelson (Mary Kessens) of La Crosse as well as many other family and friends. She was preceded in death by her parents Carl Jacob Zahn and Emma Jean Zahn (Johnson).
Barb’s life will be celebrated in Madison at the First Unitarian Society at 1 p.m. on Sunday, August 17 in the Landmark Auditorium.
Memorial gifts may be made in Barb’s honor to the OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center or the Dane County Humane Society.
The family sincerely thanks Heritage Assisted Living in Middleton and Agrace Hospice for their love, care and support of Froggy.
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