Growing up in the Mushroom Capital of the World, Jan Olson once dreamed of becoming the first woman on the Moon. But she assumed other women would soon beat her there, so she set her sights on Mars.
More realistically, she planned to become a doctor. However, because she had followed her sister Lynn to Oberlin (which didn’t offer a pre-med major), it was necessary to major in one of the sciences. Jan chose physics, as had her sister four years before. She also served on Social Board.
After graduation, she enrolled in the University of Rochester School of Medicine. In 1972 she married another member of the Oberlin Class of ‘69, Bruce Babcock. Receiving her MD degree from Rochester in 1974, Jan became a resident at the University of Wisconsin, where five other members of her family had attended previously.
In 1976, the first of the couple’s three sons was born. In 1978, Jan finished her residency and started her career as a family physician in nearby Sun Prairie. That was followed by many years at UW Madison Health Services.
Jan and Bruce loved the outdoors, especially camping, hiking, and canoeing. In 2004 they moved to a new condo overlooking Lake Wisconsin, enjoying the great view and traveling to visit their sons until cancer took her life at the end of 2015.