Barron was judge, legislator and county supervisor
Michael Barron didn’t just appear to live a charmed life; he knew he did and was thankful every day.
A native Milwaukeean of Irish descent, he got a law degree in 1959 and served as both a state legislator and a Milwaukee County supervisor before getting elected to the Circuit Court bench in 1972, where he spent 26 years.
He had a long marriage, a pair of daughters and a house on Lake Drive. Besides his legal career — which included four years as chief judge — Barron kept busy with civic engagement through involvement with business, religious and educational groups.
After leaving the bench at age 65, he did mediations and spent winters at his home in Marco Island, Florida.
“My mom wanted me to say he appreciated his life and was thankful every single day. He had no regrets,” said his daughter, Katie Barron. Barron died on Feb. 28. He was 87. About the only disappointment Barron experienced was not being reappointed chief judge in 1990, when the Supreme Court justices opted for someone else they thought might do better at increasing county funding for court operations in Milwaukee County.
Barron said at the time he was at least glad his replacement was a former law partner, Patrick Sheedy.
In 1986, Barron had presided at a four-month civil trial over control of the De Rance Foundation, a Catholic charity. He concluded that its founder, Harry John, had engaged in gross misconduct in depleting its assets from $188 million to $77 million in two years and turned control over to John’s ex-wife.
Katie Barron said the case fascinated her father — a devout Catholic — on every level. Though she was just a child at the time, she said, she’d hear other kids’ parents around her Catholic schools saying things like, “The Pope is watching” the case.
The vast majority of Barron’s time on the bench was in the civil division, but one criminal case landed him on ABC’s “20/20.” In 1992, the program was reexamining the 1992 homicide of a 16-year-old girl, based on several witnesses’ claims that the defendant was in Iowa at the time.
As chief judge, working with Gov. Tommy Thompson and County Executive Dave Schulz, Barron helped create one of the first drug courts in the nation.
His daughter said Barron enjoyed organizations, rules and even meetings and so tended to wind up as president or chairman of anything he joined. That included student government at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Marquette, the National Association of Metropolitan Courts, the Wisconsin Reserve Judges Association, Marquette Law School’s board of trustees, UWM Alumni Association, the Convention & Visitors Bureau, Milwaukee Archdiocesan School Board and the East Side Businessmen’s Association. Barron also judged Irish Fest’s freckle contest since 1981.
But though “he was Mr. Milwaukee,” Katie Barron said, her father encouraged her and her sister to follow their dreams, even to places like California and Hong Kong, and resisted her urging to move near her in Washington, D.C., to be close to grandchildren.
In addition to Katie Barron, he is survived by another daughter, Mary Beth Barron, and his wife Mary Lu, a sister, Kathleen Hanley, and two grandchildren.
Visitation for Barron will be March 13 beginning at 10:30 a.m. at St. Robert Parish, 2214 E. Capitol Drive, Shorewood, followed by a livestreamed Mass at noon.