Family Portrait
Barbara Axlen Thede
Little do we know, walking into her modest, one-bedroom apartment, that Barbara Ann Axlen Thede wears her flaws, her scars and her love for singer/songwriter Pink (P!nk), literally, on her sleeve.
Welcomed by a small parking lot across the street, we shuffle by remnants of the last snowfall - not the pretty kind, the been-plowed, dead-leaf-streaked kind - bordering the sidewalks. Typical Wisconsin scene. We enter the communal hallway of the apartment building fogged with smells of aging carpet and dotted with holiday wreaths overdue for takedown.
Her place itself, with a collection of bells and knickknacks neatly lining her shelves, certainly doesn’t give a rebellious vibe. Even Barb herself, 60 years old with short, mousy hair, wire-rimmed glasses, dressed in her familiar untucked, button down and seated in her floral power chair, seems like anyone’s amiable aunt who never misses your softball games.
And then, a quick glance to our left, a Pink explosion. On her wall, in stark contrast with the matronly decor, a photographic shrine of Pink. A mosaic of her favorite prints and photos. Barb also has books, CDs, ticket stubs, magazine tear-outs from coworkers and bookmarked YouTube searches.
Probably the most permanent tokens of Barb’s dedication are the two portraits of the artist herself tattooed on both of Barb’s forearms (she’s gotten two more since then), all freshly touched up for her upcoming concert, her sixth time seeing her hero.
Like Family
Barb first discovered Pink when the artist went solo in 2000.
“She was such a rebel. And that’s how I was when I was younger,” says Barb. “I got attached to that right away. You know, her gruffness, her badassness and her voice.”
An encyclopedia of Pink, so to speak, Barb dives into a short history of “Pink before Barb,” recanting stories of Pink’s first bands, Basic Instinct and Choice, and how L.A. Reid prompted Pink’s solo career. It’s a little like she’s sharing family lore.
And that’s not too far fetched.
“She reminds me … like she’d be like my little sister,” says Barb. “Just like a little sister.”
Barb speaks in an affable laugh-through-her-words manner, but this statement is calm and telling. Maybe it’s because Pink’s a Virgo, which appeals to Barb’s astrology sensibility (she says Virgos are compatible with Sagitarrius like her)—or maybe deep down Barb wants a little sister.
Barb and her family. Photo provided by Barb Thede.
Barb is the baby of the five Axlen kids. She has three brothers and a sister. They grew up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, a relatively decent-sized Midwestern town that hugs the Lake Michigan shoreline. (She gets the Thede from her marriage to the late Jeff Thede which ended in divorce in 1997.)
“My dad was pretty much an ass. My ma kept the shit going,” she says. They got divorced, and her father, Dale, moved a few hours away to the town where he grew up. Then he died in a car accident. “I never seen him after my mom divorced him. He didn’t want any part of the kids and that.”
Barb describes her father as an alcoholic with a bad temper, which made harmony at home difficult.
“Then my mom got remarried to my stepdad Richard,” she says. “Back then all the guys did was going to work and then drink. He’d work three to noon and come out all plastered every day. But then he mellowed with age.”
“Our Sundays consisted of going up to Green Bay after church and see my sister at Our Lady of Charity group home, and then we’d have to go to the Green Bay prison to see my brother.”
Barb speaks of her father and stepfather in an almost indifferent tone, spilling out their sins like she’s recalling how they tied their shoes or ate their breakfast. (Though, her love of the song, “Sober,” which reminds her of her dad, tells a different story.)
The kids responded with restlessness that escalated over the years. Barb described them as “sassy, sassy, sassy,” as if they were simply kittens constantly batting shit off the table.
“Our Sundays consisted of going up to Green Bay after church and see my sister at Our Lady of Charity group home, and then we’d have to go to the Green Bay prison to see my brother,” Barb laughs, “That was our Sundays! Go to church and then go and visit the family. And I just remember, I was probably 10, you walk into those prisons—and those doors! [She makes a heavy door noise.] And you look around like, ‘Holy crumb!’”
Her two oldest siblings burglarized homes and grocery stores to steal liquor. They got caught. She and her youngest brother, to whom she is closest, never got arrested for anything because they took being rebels “to the safe level,” meaning drugs, everything from acid and mushrooms to cocaine and pot.
“My whole family did them. I always tell everybody, ‘See, I am living proof that you don’t fry your brain,’” she says, referencing the 1980s “this is your brain on drugs” PSA with the frying egg. “Maybe in other families, not ours. We’re just fine.”
Barb as a child. Photo provided by Barb Thede.
The Mother Figure
What kept the family fine, so to speak, was mom, Geraldine Axlen Bauer. A soda fountain-jerking mainstay at the old Roenitz Drug Company in downtown Sheboygan, she was a tough-talking lady who’d toe-up to any suit that walked into the door for around 40 years.
“Big high-falutin lawyers would come down, and she’d give them shit. They loved it. District attorneys from the courthouse would come—there were 10 stools there—and eat egg salad sandwiches. My mom would give them crap, and they’d go back to work,” Barb recalls.
Geraldine Axlen, Barb’s mom, working at her famous post at the Sheboygan drugstore. Photo provided by Barb Thede.
Barb remembers heading to the shop after clocking out of her third-shift job and grabbing a morning malt mixed by mom. Geraldine, according to her daughter, ran that shop like she was the boss, even though she wasn’t.
“I’m like that, too. I don’t like to be told what to do. I’ll do it, but my eyes will be red furious. Don’t you tell me what to do, ask me. And that’s how my mom was,” says Barb.
Geraldine died in 2010, nearly 9 months after she buried her second husband Richard (the Axlen kids’ mellowed-with-age stepdad), but she left Barb life lessons that form her daughter’s view of the world and of herself.
“My mom brought us up to be tough because it’s a wicked world out there,” explains Barb. “You don’t let anybody walk over you. My mom always told us since we were little everybody’s the same.”
Kindred spirits
To us, Geraldine symbolizes Barb’s guiding light, reflected in Pink, a strong woman not afraid to speak her mind, reveal past trauma and have the courage to be herself. Someone with an authentic laugh. A mother figure. A little sister.
Barb listens to Pink songs every single day. The lyrics speak to her, almost like therapy, expressing loss and anger, love and forgiveness. It’s visible on Barb’s face and in her voice as she recalls her past hurts, whether it’s her family history of substance abuse or the demons that haunted her ex-husband who committed suicide 18 years after their divorce.
Pink reminds her of the strong woman she is: one who can overcome and make unlikely connections with others, like her orthopedic doctor and the burger joint cashier who loved her tattoos or her friend Heather, 17 years her junior, who’s attended four Pink concerts with her.
Sixty years in, Barb is still forming who she is—and Pink is a big part of that. And one day, she hopes she’ll get to meet her.
“I would probably just talk normal stuff with her. I would tell her how awesome she is and how she reminds me of me when I was younger—and keep it up. And then I would tell her when you get old don’t stop because I did. I would tell her I’m 60 and getting soft,” says Barb.
We’re not sure “soft” is the right word. Maybe content with who she is and where she comes from, with a compassion that only comes from witnessing life. Someone who would be there for you. Just like your aunt, thinking of her next tattoo, who never misses your softball games.
How we met Barb: Angie and I played women’s slow-pitch softball together in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Barb is good friends with our teammate Heather and would attend our games, cheering us on by name, like she’s known us forever.
