When your family members is as significant as Pensacola’s Wogsland loved ones, you cannot find the money for to drop your rock, that a person continual resource of tranquility and balance.
But the Wogsland spouse and children shed theirs July 17 when Leonard Wogsland died of COVID-19 at the age of 68, and now the household has launched a GoFundMe account to aid them pay for a host of unexpected costs that prolong past his funeral.
In the months leading up to his loss of life, 20 of Leonard Wogsland’s spouse and children users lived possibly with him or upcoming door to him. He lived with his spouse, Kathleen, their grownup son, Mike, and his spouse, alongside with their 5 small children. Following doorway lived Leonard’s grownup daughter, Molly, and her husband and 10 young children.
Leonard Wogsland had 18 grandchildren entirely, even though the other a few are living in Atlanta with their mother.
If it is really a tiny convoluted to recognize the Wogsland spouse and children tree, picture how tough it was for the loved ones to are living and coexist during the pandemic. And then try to visualize how a lot far more chaotic the condition grew to become when Hurricane Sally ripped the roof off of Leonard and Kathleen’s Brent dwelling in September 2020.
“The morning (Sally) strike, the pet dog was likely nuts,” Kathleen mentioned, recalling the early morning of Sept. 16, 2020. “As I walked via the hallway there, I seemed and went, ‘Oh my gosh.’ And as I flipped the mild on, the tiny twister, tornado, whatsoever it was, it virtually twisted the roof off and flung it. The storm arrived raging in and in minutes we experienced 3 inches of water in the property. Then the ceiling arrived crashing in. So we misplaced anything.”
For the past 10 months, the household has been displaced and dispersed involving a household camping trailer in front of that house, a refurbished garage/guest house and Molly Wogsland’s dwelling following doorway, which did not maintain approximately as much damage from Sally.
The young children had been all homeschooled before the COVID-19 pandemic, but they had a lot additional house to run just before Sally touched down.
Mike Wogsland and his wife, Seira, are missionaries and pastors who served for 10 yrs in Japan, where three of their 5 kids have been born. They returned from Japan a couple of years back and moved in with Leonard and Kathleen, who is a retired trainer.
Kathleen has taught the 15 grandchildren, largely on her personal, for the past two decades.
“We truly experienced an remarkable yr as far as the homeschooling went, they’re wonderful young ones,” Kathleen reported Monday. “We use a community school instructor to occur out and appraise each individual child each and every year. She’s been with us for many years. But the children have finished so effectively that they have skipped grades, some have graduated from significant faculty at 16.”
The class of 2020, regardless of all of the variables thrown its way, was a small routine maintenance class for Kathleen. If something, her late husband was the class clown.
Leonard endeared himself to his grandkids as a result of his baking abilities (though, not so much throughout the pandemic, with the family’s electrical outlets on the fritz) as perfectly as his capability on the guitar.
“They understood that grandpa beloved them and two, that grandpa was a difficult worker who furnished for them and who was there to assist if they came to him with just about anything,” Mike reported of his father, Leonard, who was a retired IT salesman at the time of his dying. “He was the rock of the complete loved ones, he was the patriarch. Any time there was emotional trouble or spiritual problems or bodily difficulties, he was the a single we’d request out because he was the rock.”
With his acoustic guitar in tow, beneath a precarious tarp for a roof at periods, Leonard was regarded to play his unique worship tracks for the loved ones, when the climate permitted.
“We would all sit jointly, anywhere we were, and he would engage in his new tunes for everyone,” Kathleen explained. “We would all sing. The youngsters would dance and sing and clap. He cherished those people little ones. Anything he did for our have young children, their spouses and the grandkids. This was our complete everyday living, the grandkids.”
The spouse and children claimed Leonard’s jovial mindset wasn’t just constrained to the relatives circle. He was as warm and thoughtful to strangers as he was his possess relations.
“Anyplace we went, he’d be conversing with people today,” Kathleen reported. “He designed mates with unquestionably everyone. Everywhere we went.”
Mike, Kathleen and Leonard all contracted COVID-19 at the identical time in June. All a few have been unvaccinated. Kathleen said she and Leonard dealt with allergies that created them apprehensive about getting the shot.
Because Leonard’s loss of life, Mike has been given his to start with dose of the vaccine and Kathleen mentioned she’s soon to stick to.
Leonard was hospitalized in early July and his situation quickly deteriorated all through a 10-day span, his family claimed. He didn’t get to love the culmination of a 10-month odyssey to restore his residence, as his roof was fully preset just months ago whilst he was in the hospital.
Leonard also failed to get to see his loved ones in particular person at the time of his demise, as Mike and Kathleen had been at the tail end of their bouts with COVID-19. Kathleen reported she can take solace in the actuality that the relatives he lived with in Pensacola and quite a few other prolonged loved ones customers in Wogsland’s hometown in Minnesota conducted a six-hour FaceTime and Zoom marathon with him in the course of his final days.
“They held the cellular phone and we all bought to say goodbye to him. We all received to be there as he handed and it was actually attractive,” Kathleen claimed. “Not having to see him in human being was very hard. But we all sat out on the chairs out in front of the camper and we all bought to collect all around and speak to him.”
The GoFundMe account established up in Leonard’s name had elevated $9,125 as of Monday afternoon. The household plans to use the funds for Leonard’s funeral Aug. 6 and the prolonged record of repairs even now essential on his dwelling. Mike Wogsland approximated Monday that 80% of the house and the items in it ended up compromised for the duration of Sally.
“It really is been a actual Task year for us,” he claimed, utilizing a biblical determine as a metaphor for his family’s tragic past year. “If you’re familiar at all with the Bible, Career missing his loved ones, his property and his wellbeing. And which is definitely what this yr has represented for us. But God has been trustworthy.”
Jake Newby can be arrived at at [email protected] or 850-435-8538.
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