Barbara Vogelgesang

Barbara J. Vogelgesang
September 20, 1921 – September 21, 2014

Brigadier Barbara Vogelgesang, 93, passed away Monday, September 21, 2014. Services will be 2:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at the Salvation Army Citadel, 1225 Interstate 35, Waco, TX with Major Bradley Caldwell officiating. Visitation will be 6-8 p.m., Monday, September 29, 2014 at OakCrest Funeral Home 4520 Bosque Blvd. Burial will be at Forest Home Cemetery, Forest Park IL.

Brigadier Barbara Vogelgesang was born September 20, 1921 in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Arthur G. and Frances L. (Blessing) Vogelgesang, who preceded her in death. She graduated from Huron, South Dakota High School. She was ordained as a minister (officer) of the Salvation Army in June of 1941. This was followed with several pastoral appointments and related ministries in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, and Indiana. On June 20, 1960 she joined the Central Territory Correctional Services staff at the Territorial Headquarters in Chicago. She was responsible for the Bible correspondence courses that are sent to prisoners throughout U.S. and Canada. She was The Salvation Army Chaplain at Cook County Jail, where she also revised the Bible courses. In the fall of 1971 she was appointed to Southern Illinois University Technological School from which she received a degree in Corrections and Law Enforcement. The appointment was extended and she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in the Administration of Justice. Following graduation she was appointed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin as Divisional Director of Corrections; later she was transferred to Kansas City, Missouri where she filled a similar position.

Her ministry covered the Federal prison for men in Leavenworth, Kansas, the Disciplinary Barracks for military offenders in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and the Kansas state prisons for men and women in Lansing, Kansas. In 1983 she retired from The Salvation Army to take a position as the Protestant Chaplain for the state of Texas in the Gatesville unit at Gatesville. She left this service in 1986, but continued as a substitute teacher in the prison school system until she reached the age of 75. Desiring to be near The Salvation Army Church, she moved to Waco in 2000. She was a member of the Texas Association of Retired Officers and a Fellow in the College of Fellows of the American Protestant Correctional Chaplains Association, Inc.