Joyce Meta Jaeger ²

   Cause of her death was Cancer.

  General Notes:

 
Remembrances of Life by Joyce Bartell in her 86th year, for those of her progeny who are interested.

I was born in Marinette, Wisconsin, April 11, 1917, the second of five children of Christian Frederick Jaeger and Emma Anna Herbst Jaeger, but I lived in Marinette only until I went off to college at the University of Wisconsin, and Madison became my lifetime home. I had just turned 16 and graduated as salutatorian of my Marinette High School class. The nation was in the depths of the Great Depression, so there was no possibility of my family affording a college education for me. No one in the Jaeger or Herbst families had gone to college; neither my father nor mother had finished high school. But several of my teachers were determined that I have that opportunity. They encouraged and advised me, loaned me money to get started and helped me get a waitress job at Chadbourne Hall (which I held throughout my college years) so I became a "coed." I supported myself partly with an occasional scholarship and mostly by holding simultaneously as many as three part-time jobs while generally carrying the usual credit load. (Some of you may be interested that one of those jobs was writing for the Wisconsin Alumnus Magazine, the editor of which was Harry Thoma, who married Lucille Melham, a divorcee with a young daughter Mary, known as "Molly." Years later Molly became my sister-in-law, thanks to brother Ed. So I knew Molly's step-father possibly before she did.)

My youth and the necessity to support myself made my college experience somewhat narrower than it might have been. I had no time for extracurricular activities, but with my high school boyfriend now a college junior and member of a fraternity, my social life didn't suffer. And I did well academically, elected to freshman honorary society Sigma Epsilon Sigma, writing an "unheard of" 100 score in Econ I-A final exam, invited to join the honorary journalism sorority Theta Sigma Phi, known now as Women in Communications, and ultimately being chosen to the prestigious Letters and Science honorary society Phi Beta Kappa. I took time off school to work for a semester, and received a B.A. degree in journalism in 1938, graduating with high honors.

My first job completely shaped my career and life. I was alerted by one of my professors to an opening at WHA, the University radio station, and was hired as its script editor and later became Assistant Director of the Wisconsin School of the Air, planning programs, preparing teacher manuals, writing and editing scripts, and training students in those skills.

WHA in those days was producing several dozen original radio shows weekly, but my primary focus was on programming for the Wisconsin School of the Air. Founded in 1931 as a source of enrichment for elementary schools throughout the state, the School of the Air broadcast from 10 to 14 programs weekly, reaching as many as 300,000 students in some 14,000 classrooms, benefiting especially one and two-room rural schools, which still numbered in the thousands in the 1930s. When School of the Air originator and Director Harold McCarty left WHA for war service, I advanced from Assistant Director to Acting Director of the Wisconsin School of the Air for the duration.

More important, it was at WHA that I met my future husband. Gerald A. "Jerry" Bartell was head of production for the station, which meant he took what I and others wrote and put it on the air. He cast the shows (the sign "Smorgas Board" over the bulletin board in my present office headed the WHA Players cast lists eagerly consulted by student actors) directed and acted in them, and helped win for WHA numerous awards in educational broadcasting, including a "Peabody," about which more later.

By 1941 I had become engaged to my longtime boyfriend from Marinette, but when he threatened Jerry with dire consequences if "you don't stay away from my girl," Jerry took on the challenge. I broke the engagement, and on Nov. 2, 1941 – with reluctant acceptance by my father because Jerry had a Jewish background – we were married in the chapel of the First Congregational Church in Madison. For all our 48+ years together (Jerry died in July 1990) we were a team in broadcast media education and entertainment, he as producer and performer, I as writer. Our collaborations included a children's radio program broadcast in Madison and Milwaukee, children's records (one was chosen for the Young People's Record of the Month Club), a series of TV programs for children that pre-dated "Captain Kangaroo" and was aired as far away as Australia-and even paid political announcements for commercial radio.

I consider our most important collaborations to be the production, raising, and educating of six children, all worthwhile and admirable additions to the human race. They are: Jane A. Bartell, Madison, writer, producer, and marketing specialist in mass media broadcast communications; twin sons Dr. Thomas H., Madison, and Dr.Thad E., Chandler, Arizona; professor of law Laura B. Bartell (Mrs. Stanley Harr), Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan; and Madison attorneys Jeffrey B. and Denis P. Bartell.

In addition to her children, Joyce is survived by 19 grandchildren, most living in Madison. They include Jane's son, Joseph Corazzi; Jennifer, Emily, Claire, and Corbin Bartell, children of Denis and Kathleen Corbin Bartell; Christina, Stephanie, and Alex Bartell, children of Drs. Thomas and Nina Petrovich Bartell; Jessica, Carey, Chad, twins Dana and Nicholas Bartell, children of Jeffrey and Angela Baldi Bartell; Joanna and Jeremy Harr, children of Laura Bartell and Stanley Harr, Grosse Pointe Shores Michigan; and grandsons Jared, Elliott, Zachary, and Daniel whose parents are Dr. Thad and Loretta Wagner Bartell Chandler Arizona.

Final in Joyce's list of surviving progeny are great granddaughter Ayden Marie Bartell Ehrhardt, first-born of Dr. Jessica Bartell and her husband Dr. William Ehrhardt, and great-_____________, whose parents are Carey Bartell and Josh Gilbert of Chicago.

Three of Joyce's siblings survive her. They are Alice, wife of Dr. Gerald C. Mueller, Middleton; Chris F. Jaeger, (sister-in-law Helen Gushing Jaeger), Youngstown, Ohio; and Edward R. Jaeger (sister-in-law Mary "Molly" Melham Jaeger), Eagle River, Wisconsin. Also many nieces and nephews and cousins. Preceding her in death was brother Gardner A. Jaeger, Milwaukee.
During the years my primary responsibility was raising our children, I used my writing skills in volunteer work for many Madison arts organizations. I'm most proud of handling all the publicity in connection with the public drive headed by Walter Frautschi to raise $1.3 million toward creation of the Madison Civic Center. The Madison Civic Music Association (the Symphony), Madison Art Association (now Art Center), Phi Beta speech and music fraternity, Madison Opera, and other groups also appreciated my volunteer publicity work, the professional quality of which was recognized by my receiving in 1974 the Writer's Cup of the Madison chapter of Women in Communications.

Another honor I was awarded jointly with Dad-the Distinguished Service Award of the University of Wisconsin Alumni Association, presented in 1978. Incidentally, each of us was profiled separately in the early days of the Wisconsin State Journal's "Know Your Madisonian" feature.

Service on the boards of numerous local organizations in addition to those mentioned above was a part of my "unemployed" years of domesticity. While on the board of the Dane County Mental Health Association, I set up a library at the Children's Treatment Center. I was chairman of the Madison Civics Club; an active member of Attic Angels Association and of the Mayor's Committee for the Monona Terrace during one of its still-births; an officer of Madison Art Association and Friends of Wisconsin Libraries.

I was appointed to the Council of the University's Elvehjem Museum of Art when it was organized in 1972, and continued a member to this day, serving as its chairman 1977-79. I'm a director of the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts, a member of the Madison Literary Club, the U.W. Alumni Association and Bascom Hill Society, University League, and First Unitarian Society, among many other affiliations.

Dad and I have been members of Madison's First Unitarian Society since 1955 and it was there, on returning to Madison after our eight years in Milwaukee, we made many of our friends. When the First Unitarian Society Foundation came into being in 1973, I was on the first Board of Directors, and served as President for two years. In the '90s I rejoined the Foundation Board for another six years. A "Bartell Memorial Endowment" was set up after Dad's death, and I would like that to be mentioned in my obituary as one of two recipients of any memorials. They must be made specifically to the First Unitarian Society Foundation, 900 University Bay Drive, Madison 53705, earmarked for the Bartell Endowment. (As a member of the Society's "Legacy Circle," I have committed to making provision in my will for the Society, hence that bequest.)

The other suggested recipient is the University of Wisconsin Foundation, P.O. Box 8860, Madison 53708, for the Bartell Award in the Arts.

We've always felt close to the University of Wisconsin, but it happens that two of the most interesting chapters in my professional life were with other universities. For seven years in the 1980s I was on the National Advisory Board of the George Foster Peabody Awards, considered the industry's most prestigious and coveted recognition of excellence in broadcasting. Originated in 1940 and administered by the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Georgia in Athens, the Peabody Awards in recent years have even attracted entries from countries beyond American borders. The Advisory Board, in my tenure, consisted of 15 members from across the country, charged with the responsibility of selecting annually, from among thousands of entries, some 30-35 radio and television programs considered most worthy. With previous preparation, we convened each spring in Athens for three days of final decision-making. Our choices were then recognized and honored at a New York celebratory event.

My other university connection was somewhat more prolonged and required frequent trips to Los Angeles. I was on the staff of the Center for the Study of the American Experience, associated with the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California. The Center, directed by John Weaver, former President of the University of Wisconsin, staged conferences on topics of concern in modern society, such as bilingualism, the arts, the energy crisis, freedom of religion, law of the sea. For each conference, experts and specialists from all over the country were brought together for several days of discussion and debate. Participants were distinguished intellectual leaders -- to name a few, Jonas Salk, David Rockefeller Jr., Henry Steele Commager, Barbara Jordan, Jerome Wiesner, John Houseman.

Dad and I were asked to join the Center (part-time, of course) to preserve the proceedings of the conferences. He made of each conference a lively audio/video record that was distributed for broadcast on public television stations. It was my job as Publications Editor of the Center to convert speeches and discussions into permanent book form. Some of this work I could do in Madison, but I was always present for the conferences and spent a good deal of time in my office on the USC campus, close to the USC Press, which published the books as they were completed.

Those were my "commuting" days, with frequent flights to Los Angeles. Dad and I shared an apartment in Beverly Hills-with Jane, who was working with Joe in developing projects using satellite television. After Walter Annenberg tired of the Center for Study of the American Experience and withdrew his funding, I continued to commute to L.A. to work with Jane and Joe on various projects, culminating in the company known as Telstar, in which, by this time, Dad was an investor and active participant. These were fascinating and happy years, enriching in knowledge and experience.

Dad and I enjoyed world travel, and we always took too many photographs which, on our return home, I was compelled to compile in albums with detailed travelogues. Some of the most important, however, I've "not got to"-specifically the Soviet Union and, sadly, the family cruise in Greek waters. I hope someone will want to do that unfinished story for me if I'm not given enough time to do it myself.

I've loved the wonder and beauty of nature...the innocence and charm of children... the privilege of friendships... music and the theater. I've been fortunate in having a long and fulfilling life, and especially in having a loving and supportive family to share it. In the last analysis, nothing's more important then family, and it's my fervent hope that you all will continue to love and support each other as you have me. You have my boundless love. ^{[Joyce Jaeger Bartell]}

  Research Notes:

 
Remembrances of Life by Joyce Bartell in her 86th year, for those of her progeny who are interested. was taken from a biography that Joyce had written only a couple of months before her death.

The printed obituary varies slightly than the Wisconsin State Journal website version. That version combines the information contained on the website and Joyce's own writing.

  Noted events in her life were:

• Honors: Writer's Cup of the Madison chapter of Women in Communications Service, 1974, Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA. ¹

• Volunteer: Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA. ¹

• Honors: Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA. ¹

• Honors: by serving as Chairman for the Council of the University of Wisconsin's Elvehjem Museum of Art, 1977-1979, Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA. ¹

• Honors: National Advisory Board of the George Foster Peabody Awards, 1980-1989. ¹

• Education: B.A. in Journalism, Jun 1938, Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA. ¹

• Obituary: the Capitol Times, 18 Oct 2002, Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA. ³
Arts Patron Joyce Bartell Dies
Often Worked Behind Scenes
The Capital Times
Friday, October 18, 2002
By Judith Davidoff The Capital Times

Local philanthropist and arts booster Joyce Jaeger Bartell died Wednesday night at the age of 86 after an eight-month battle with cancer.

Bartell served most recently as a member of the Advisory Board of the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts, the group that sponsors the annual Governor's Awards in Support of the Arts. She edited the foundation's newsletter and wrote the official citations for the awards.

According to Bartell's son Jeff, an attorney in Madison, she was working on this year's certificates up until last week.

Jeff Bartell said that his mom volunteered her publicity and writing talents to numerous arts groups, including the Madison Symphony and Madison Art Center.

"She was always behind the scenes writing, but she rarely got the credit I think she deserved for all the wonderful prose," he said on Thursday.

He also said his mother was a strong role model for him and his five siblings.

"She was to our family a pillar of stone," he said. "She was a guiding light for those of us growing up."

Bartell was the widow of Gerald Bartell, a successful businessman, former faculty member with the Wisconsin Union Theater, and namesake of the Bartell Theatre.

She handled all the publicity for the $1.3 million fundraising drive toward creation of the Madison Civic Center and has been a strong supporter of the Elvehjem Museum.

Russell Panczenko, director of the museum, said that Bartell will be greatly missed.

"She went all out to be as supportive as she possibly could be," said Panczenko.

He noted that Bartell has been a member of the Elvehjem Council, a group that helps with fundraising and community relations, since it was created in 1972.

"Her loyalty is such that she has been on the council ever since," he said.

Fannie Taylor, a former director of the Wisconsin Union Theater, was a friend of Bartell's since their days as journalism students at UW-Madison in the late 1930s.

Taylor said she worked on several projects over the years with Bartell, whom she described as bright, generous and modest. She added that Bartell was also a fine writer and a meticulous record-keeper.

"I was always very certain if Joyce took it on it would be done and done well," Taylor said.

• Obituary: The Wisconsin State Journal (printed version), 20 Oct 2002, Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA. ⁴  
Joyce J. Bartell, a Madison philanthropist and lover of the arts, died Wednesday after a fight with cancer. She was 85.

"She was very supportive, very helpful, very kind in many ways," said Russell Panczenko, director of UW-Madison's Elvehjem Museum of Art who worked with Bartell to open the museum in the 1970s.

For much of the time the two worked together, Bartell was the group's secretary.

Panczenko said when he would sometimes take notes during meetings, he was intimidated to show them to her because he "knew she wrote so much better." But Bartell was never critical, never harsh, he said.

During her time in Madison, which started when she attended UW-Madison and graduated in 1938 with a journalism degree, Bartell worked on radio and television projects that were heard and shown as far away as Australia.

Later, she turned to fund raising. She helped raise money for the Madison Civic Center and volunteered with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and other art groups.

Memorials may be made to the Bartell Fund for Awards in the Arts at the University of Wisconsin Foundation, 1848 University Ave., PO Box 8860, Madison, WI 53708-8860.

• Obituary: the Wisconsin State Journal (website version), 20 Oct 2002, Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA. ⁴  
Sunday, October 20, 2002
Bartell, Joyce J.
MADISON -

Remembrances of Life by Joyce J. Bartell (April 11, 1917 - Oct. 16, 2002).

I was born in Marinette, Wis., the second of five children of Christian Frederick Jaeger and Emma Anna Herbst Jaeger, but I lived in Marinette only until I went off to college at the University of Wisconsin, and Madison became my lifetime home. I had just turned l6 and graduated as salutatorian of my Marinette High School class.

The nation was in the depths of the Great Depression, so there was no possibility of my family afford­ing a college education for me. No one in the Jaeger or Herbst families had gone to college; neither my father nor mother had finished high school. But several of my teachers were de­termined that I have that opportunity. They encouraged and advised me, loaned me money to get started and helped me get a waitress job at Chadbourne Hall (which I held throughout my college years), so I became a "coed." I did well academically, elected to freshman honorary society Sigma Epsilon Sigma, invited to join the honorary journalism sorority Theta Sigma Phi, known now as Women in Communications, and chosen to Phi Beta Kappa. I received a B.A. degree in journalism in 1938, graduating with high honors.

My first job completely shaped my career and life. At WHA, the University radio sta­tion, I was hired as its script editor and later became assistant director of the Wisconsin School of the Air, planning pro­grams, preparing teacher manu­als, writing and editing scripts and training students in those skills. More important, it was at WHA that I met my future husband. Gerald A. "Jerry" Bartell was head of production for the station, which meant he took what I and others wrote and put it on the air. He cast the shows, directed and acted in them, and helped win for WHA numerous awards in educational broad­casting, including a "Peabody."

On November 2, 1941, Jerry and I were married in the chapel of First Congregational Church in Madison. For all our 40-plus years together (Jerry died in July 1990) we were a team in broadcast media education and enter­tainment, he as producer and performer, I as writer. Our collaborations included a children's radio program broadcast in Madison and Milwaukee, children's records (one was cho­sen for the Young Peoples Re­cord of the Month Club), a series of TV programs for chil­dren that predated "Captain Kangaroo" and was aired as far away as Australia - and even paid political announcements for commercial radio.

But I consider our most important collab­orations to be the production, raising and educating of six children, all worthwhile and ad­mirable additions to the human race. They are: Jane A. Bartell, Madison, writer, producer and marketing specialist in mass media broadcast communica­tions; twin sons Dr. Thomas H. Bartell, Madison, and Dr. Thad E. Bartell, Chandler, Ariz.; pro­fessor of law Laura B. Bartell (Mrs. Stanley Harr), Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich.; and Madi­son attorneys Jeffrey B. Bartell and Denis P. Bartell. In addi­tion, I am blessed with 19 grandchildren, most living in Madison. They include Jane's son, Joseph Corazzi; Jennifer, Emily, Claire and Corbin Bartell, children of Denis and Kathleen Corbin Bartell; Christina, Stephanie and Alex Bartell, children of Drs. Thomas and Nina Petrovich Bartell; Jessica, Carey, Chad, twins Dana and Nicholas Bartell, children of Jef­frey and Judge Angela Bartell; Joanna and Jeremy Harr, chil­dren of Laura Bartell and Stanley Harr, Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich.; and grandsons Jared, Elliott, Zachary and Daniel whose parents are Dr. Thad and Loretta Wagner Bartell, Chandler, Ariz. Final in my list of progeny is great-granddaughter. Ayden Marie Bartell Ehrhardt, first­born of Dr. Jessica Bartell and her husband, Dr. William Ehrhardt, Madison.

During the years my primary responsibility was raising our children, I used my writing skills in volunteer work for many Madison arts or­ganizations. I'm most proud of handling all the publicity in connection with the public drive headed by Walter Frautschi to raise $1.3 million toward creation of the Madison Civic Center. I did volunteer publicity work for the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Madison Art Center, Phi Beta speech and music fraternity, Madison Opera and other groups also appreciated my volunteer publicity work, the professional quality of which was recognized by my receiving in 1974 the Writer's Cup of the Madison chapter of Women in Communications Service on the boards of numerous Madison nonprofit organizations in addition to those mentioned above was a part of my 'unemployed" years of domesticity. While on the board of the Dane County Men­tal Health Association, I set up a library at the Children's Treat­ment Center; I was chairman of the Madison Civic Club and an active member of Attic Angels Association and of the Mayors committee for the Monona Terrace (during one of its still­births); and I served as an offi­cer of Madison Art Association and Friends of Wisconsin Libraries. I was appointed to the Council of the University's Elvehjem Museum of Art when it was organized in 1972, and continued as a member to this day, serving as its chairman from 1977-79. I'm a director of the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts, a member of the Madison Literary Club, the UW Alumni Association and Bascom Hill Society, University League and First Unitarian Society, among many other affiliations. I've always felt close to the University of Wisconsin, but it happens that two of the most interesting chapters in my professional life were with other universities.

For seven years in the 1980s I was on the National Advisory Board of the George Foster Pea­body Awards, considered the industry's most prestigious and coveted recognition of excel­lence in broadcasting. In my other university connection, I was on the staff of the Center for the Study of the American Experience, associated with the Annenberg School of Communi­cations at the University of Southern California. The Center, directed by John Weaver, former president of the University of Wisconsin, staged conferences on topics of concern in modern society, such as bilingualism, the arts, the energy crisis, freedom of religion, and law of the sea, with participants such as Jonas Salk, David Rockefeller Jr., Henry Steele Commager, Barbara Jordan, Jerome Wiesner and John Houseman. It was my job as publications editor for the Center to convert these speeches and discussions into permanent book form.

In my 86th year, I have many happy memories. I've loved the wonder and beauty of nature… the innocence and charm of children… the privilege of friendships… music and the theater. I've been fortunate in having a long and fulfilling life, and especially in having a loving and supportive family to share it.

Memorials may be made to the Bartell Fund for Awards in the Arts at the University of Wisconsin Foundation, 1848 Univer5ity Ave., P.O. Box 8860, Madison, WI 53708-8860.

Joyce married Gerald A. Bartell on 02 Nov 1941 in Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA.¹ (Gerald A. Bartell was born on 20 May 1914 ⁵ and died on 27 Jul 1990 in Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA ^{6 7}.)

  Noted events in their marriage were:

• Marriage: First Congregational Church, 02 Nov 1941, Madison, Dane, Wisconsin, USA.