Bogard

The Rev. Dr. W. Carl Bogard died last week at the Willow Valley Retirement Community near Lancaster, Pa. He was 100.

Rev. Bogard was born in 1909 in Pella, Iowa. He was raised on his father's farm and brought up in the Dutch Reform Church of his forebears.

He graduated in 1930 from Central College in Pella and spent the next few years teaching high school Latin and English in Durant, Iowa, and at the elementary school on the Apache Indian reservation in Dulce, N.M.

He went on to attend Princeton Theological Seminary, graduating in 1936, when he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. He returned to Princeton in 1941 for his master's degree.

He began his ministry as a missionary near Clarksville, Ark., where he met his future wife, Alice Hollowell, on the tennis court. They married in 1942 and played tennis together into their 80s.

Rev. Bogard served with distinction as the senior pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, now Covenant Presbyterian, of Butler, from 1942 to 1970. His four children, Nicholas, Phyllis, Roger and Carol, were born and raised there.

He was well regarded for his homiletics. However, desiring to devote more time to pastoral counseling and small-group life than to the pulpit, he became associate pastor of the Red Clay Creek Presbyterian Church of Wilmington, Del., in 1970, where he served until 1978.

Tennis was an integral part of his life. He competed on the courts of the DuPont Country Club, both as a singles player and in mixed doubles with Alice, and won numerous trophies there. At the age of 70, he began competing in the Super Senior Tennis Tournaments in Florida. He was a finalist in the National Grass Court for 80-year-olds at Longwood in Boston. In 1994, he was ranked third nationally in the United States in the 85 Year Olds division.

He was as skilled at teaching tennis as at playing. He worked with youngsters and adults in the Wilmington area throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He taught tennis as a pro at the Brandywine Racquet Club in Wilmington for several years. For nine summers, he directed the training of 90 juniors for the Pennsylvania Recreation Association on the Unionville High School courts.

Rev. Bogard served the church throughout his retirement years.

From 1974 to 1986, he was the Protestant chaplain at the Emily Bissell Hospital in Wilmington. He served as the interim pastor at the Wallingford Presbyterian Church from 1980 to 1982 and as parish associate at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in West Chester, Pa., from 1982 to 1992.

In 1998, the Bogards moved to the Willow Valley Lakes Retirement Community in Lancaster, where they first attended the Highland Presbyterian Church and then the First Presbyterian Church of Lancaster. He served as a parish associate for both.

Rev. Bogard is survived by his brother, Ralph of Hamburg, N.J.; by his wife, Alice, of Willow Street, Lancaster County; and by three of his four children, Nicholas of Weston, Mass., Roger of Hector, N.Y., and Carol of Wilton, Conn. Also surviving are eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his oldest daughter, Phyllis Eilenfeldt.

<B>BOGARD</B> — A service celebrating the life of the Rev. Dr. W. Carl Bogard, who died last week, will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 13, at Lakes Manor, 300 Willow Valley Lakes Drive, Willow Street, PA 17584.Memorials may be sent, in lieu of flowers, to the Princeton Theological Seminary Scholarship Fund, 64 Mercer St., P.O. Box 821, Princeton, NJ, 08542-0803.Arrangements are by the <B>CHANDLER FUNERAL HOMES,</B> Wilmington, Del., and information also is available at www.chandlerfuneralhome.com.