Anne Seeley Forbes

Anne Forbes of Baraboo passed away quietly on September 4, 2024, at SSM St. Clare Meadows.  She was 106.

Anne Webster Seeley was born on July 26, 1918, in Topeka, Kansas, the first of two children by James A. Seeley and Maud Elkington, both of Sauk County, Wisconsin.  Jim worked as an inspector for the railroad, and they moved often;  her brother, Donn E. Seeley was born in Chillicothe, Illinois in 1925.

Anne’s mother was an early “co-ed” at the University of Wisconsin and insisted that her daughter get a good education too.  Anne graduated from both high school and Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, a music major and biology minor.  By the late 1930s she had embarked on her lifelong career as a public school teacher.  She was demonstrably as good as it gets as a band and chorus (and occasional biology) teacher and was still volunteering with the Baraboo junior high band well into her ‘80s.  Anne was also curious about everything, a constant reader and a true lifelong learner, taking college classes throughout her adult life and after retirement – for fun.  She was an incredible traveling companion who knew everything about her destination before arriving there.

A few years after World War II, Anne Seeley was teaching in tiny Lake Park, Iowa, when she met fellow teacher and coach Raymond O. Forbes, an Iowan and USAAF veteran two years her senior.  They were soon married and had teaching positions in several other places, including Iowa City, where Ray finished a master’s degree.  After their only child, Scott Seeley Forbes, was born, the couple landed in Oakland and then Harlan, Iowa, where Ray was a school administrator and Anne was briefly a stay-at-home mom (which she didn’t particularly care for).  In 1965, they relocated to her mother Maud Elkington’s family home outside of Baraboo, where Anne had spent summers as a child.  To make a long story short, Anne resumed teaching and Ray continued as a school administrator in Baraboo and later, in other Wisconsin towns until the couple retired in the early 1980s – whereupon they moved back to the home in Baraboo, which Scott and his family had maintained and had been living in for some time.  Their retirement was filled with a spectacular amount of world travel interspersed with bucolic life on the “farm” with their son and daughter-in-law;  and in 1984, their first and only biological grandchild, Rahne Seeley Forbes.  Tragically, Ray passed away unexpectedly in 1992 after heart surgery.  Anne continued to live in the Elkington home with her family until physical ailments and dementia resulted in her placement in SSM St. Clare Meadows in the early 2010s – where she remained until her passing, most closely attended by Rahne and her son.

Anne outlived most of the people in her life, including her parents in the 1950s, her husband Ray in 1992, and her brother Donn in 2018.  She is survived by her son Scott, granddaughter Rahne, great-grandson Andrew J. Nelson, and nephew Steve Proctor, all of Baraboo;  and nephews Donn, Bruce, Todd, and Dean Seeley.

Memorial services will be limited to a small family gathering to comingle Anne and Ray’s ashes at their former home, the Elkington property.  Any memorials in her name should be directed to the Baraboo Music Support Group, Inc., c/o Jason Lane, 1325 Springbrook Drive, Baraboo WI, 53913-3002 and/or SSM St. Clare Meadows Care Center, Baraboo.