Thank you!! I appreciate the recommendation and will look into both of those.
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Dollywood was one of my varieties hit the worst by -30ish temps two winters ago. It fared the worst of all of my “hardy” varieties. They were young trees but consistently burned all the way back to the grafts across multiple trees. JT-02 would be worse. I don’t know that I would recommend that for Madison, WI, but maybe Madison doesn’t get cold these days 
WS8-10 was not injured at all. Many other varieties were. Tom at Red Fern Farm says that SAA Pieper are very cold hardy, although I don’t know how that variety might taste. Whatever you try, I would recommend full sun for the best ripening, and an early ripening variety. There was a discussion on here about early varieties. As @disc4tw mentioned, varieties vary in size/shape, and in terms of how quickly tall they will get. Female persimmon generally take quite a while to get height… so a 25 foot tall female persimmon might be fairly old depending on conditions.
People report that there are a number of better cold hardy varieties than meader… and I have read that it isn’t necessarily more cold hardy than some others… but it got that reputation, I’m guessing partly by chance.
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Oof, that’s good to know! It does still hit -20F quite regularly in Madison, although the last few winters have been quite mild so I don’t think we’ve gotten -25F in years. Is there any variety you’d recommend? I’m not above a bit of strategic weighting and pruning to make it look pretty if it’s a hardy, tasty tree… it would be nice if it was naturally good looking, but hardiness AND taste AND looks is a lot to ask for.
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I grow and fruit persimmons in z4b Maine, Meader and Prok have done well so far and I’m hoping to trial others. Season length is another limiting factor besides hardiness
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There was a discussion about earlier ripening persimmon here:
https://growingfruit.org/t/hello-what-are-the-earliest-ripening-american-persimmons/42796/3
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Just shows how different zone 5 places can be. It hardly ever hits below 17 degrees here and can’t remember the last time it went past -9. We had a day go to -9 a few years ago and we all freaked out. If it is regularly going to -20 and sometimes -25 I wonder if you are actually zone 4. I was under the impression zone 5b was only supposed to go to -15 and 5a to -20. My grandma claims we have had -15 or -20 temperatures but I am pretty sure most would just call into work under transportation because our cars may not work at those temps. I question if we are a 6A or 6B now and they have just not updated our listings. Our Asters literally just burned up and died this year.
Goodness, I’m jealous! I long for such a balmy zone 5. I definitely try to buy zone 4 rated plants if I can get them.
It only gets to -20F for us once or twice a winter, but a low of -15 to -20 happens nearly every year. -25F only happened once in my memory and that’s the lowest its ever gone, but that did happen pretty recently so maybe I’m just traumatized
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I have productive trees here in SE Wisconsin (zone 5a) that have proved winter hardy. All are from seed and, so far, they have fruit that ranges from tasty to superb. Some females are just beginning to fruit, but others have fruited for two to three years. All the trees are around 10-11 years old.
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Stubbornness can be a necessary trait in our craft.
Balmy indeed. Zone 5 here, and like you we get at least one -20 day per winter.