Janice Ann Czyscon was born on April 26, 1953, to Genevieve (née Lechowski) and Stanley Czyscon in Chicago, Illinois. The only daughter in a family of five, she was a lively and spirited child who loved the hula hoop, dressing up, making others laugh, fishing, and playing catch with her brothers and dad. She was raised among a tightknit extended family and community in the Polish neighborhood of Wicker Park, and attended Holy Innocents School and Good Counsel High School-where she once considered joining the convent because they had a nice pool.

Her adventurous spirit caused her to roam, taking on odd jobs throughout the Midwest, including stays in Carbondale, Illinois, and Paw Paw, Michigan, where she worked in a bait shop and collected nightcrawlers. Her lifelong dedication to activism began in the 1960s with the Peace movement, eventually bringing her to Madison, Wisconsin, in the 1970s. After joining the Madison chapter of the National Organization for Women, she worked tirelessly toward the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. At a fateful meeting of the Madison Coalition of the ERA, which she cofounded, she met the love of her life, Crystal. Not long after, they joined together as a family, including four-year-old Carmen and Miranda, 22 months.

As young parents in the 1980s, Janice and Crystal banded together with similar families and women determined to create change for alternative family structures. While their children moved through school, they helped build safer, more affirming environments for LGBTQAI+ youth and educators through organizations such as Gays, Lesbians and Allies for Diversity in Education (GLADE), the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Teachers Network (GLSTN), and the Lesbian Parents Network. In 1999, Janice received the Woman of the Year Award from Outreach Inc. for her ongoing efforts. Her later activism focused on advancing equal rights for same-sex couples, particularly through the expansion of domestic partnership benefits at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW–Madison). Janice and Crystal made history in 2009 as the first couple in Dane County to sign the domestic partnership registry. Five years later, in 2014-and after more than 30 years together-they were legally married in Madison.

Professionally, Janice dedicated her career to UW–Madison. She earned a B.S. in Journalism and Political Science in 1983 and an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction in 1992. She spent more than 25 years as a Senior Editor in the Engineering Professional Development Department of UW–Extension, retired in 2009, and continued to check her work email for more than a decade. Her retirement was spent traveling the world with Crystal, from exploring the Canadian wilderness and the Serengeti in Africa to European tours and birdwatching in the Southwest; one trip never ended without another on the horizon.

Janice centered her life around family, including extended clans in Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota. She was a devoted Auntie who never missed a birthday or celebration, often arriving with a guitar or ukulele in hand. Kind and empathetic, Janice formed community wherever she went, most recently in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where she enjoyed playing music with the Las Cruces Ukes, pickleball, and weekly yoga classes.

Janice is survived by her wife, Crystal Hyslop; daughters, Carmen Baumann (Troy) and Miranda Hyslop-Garza; brothers, Lawrence Czyscon (Connie) and Michael Czyscon (Naomi); sisters-in-law, Kimberly Shepard (Donald) and Tamara Andreoni (Allan); and many beloved cousins, nieces and nephews.

A Celebration of Life will be held in Madison, WI, on Sunday, October 4, in the Evjue Room of the Goodman Community Center from 1 to 3 PM. In her honor, donations can be made to GSAFE and Outreach in Madison.