John “Buzz” H. was born March 3, 1941, was born between his elder sister, Roberta Pezweski, and younger sister, Sharron Cavert Smith in Fon du Lac, Wisconsin to Margaret (Baird) and Raymond Vernon Hall. Ray was a musician and came back from WWII with what today may be called PTSD, unable to adjust to civilian life he left the family on their own. Margaret Baird Hall Madaus was an amazing woman, working three jobs to keep their little family of four together. Grandma Isabella lived as an oncampus nurse at a mental health sanitorium. When Buzz was little, she snuck him into her room on campus where he hid out, for inventive childcare.

Margaret remarried when Buzz was a young teen. Finding two men in the house was not simpatico, so at seventeen Buzz moved to rented room, working, going to high school, and getting in trouble!! It was a troubled time. He found relief and more trouble through drugs, alcohol, and crime. Buzz graduated from a reformatory then to prison totaling five years of his early Wisconsin adulthood. A life which he completely transformed.