Courtesy of Sisters of St. Francis

Sister Joseen Vogt in Sierra Leone during her time in the Peace Corps. She served in the African country for 10 years helping establish teacher training centers in remote villages across the country.

Remembering the 'Mother Teresa of Cambodia'

Post Bulletin | 30 October 2015

A Franciscan sister who dedicated her life to educating the poor and disenfranchised is being remembered by former students, family and the religious community she left behind.

Sister Joseen Vogt, 93, died Oct. 18 at Assisi Heights. Her funeral was Wednesday.

During her life, Vogt helped teach Cambodians English as the country struggled to rebuild after the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror. In 1993, she established a school in Battambang, Cambodia that had 120 students. Today, that same school has three sites and educates nearly 5,000 students.

"In Cambodia, some people would say she is the best teacher. She is an idol, a heroine for them. Some would say, 'She is my second mom, my second grandma,'" said Sotith Srun, Vogt's former student and director of the school she founded.

Fellow Franciscan Sister Marlys Jax goes even further.

"I would have to say she is the Mother Teresa of Cambodia. She has that much respect and reverence," Jax said.

While missionary work became Vogt's passion, it wasn't always that way.

The picture that changed everything

Vogt was born in Waseca, the seventh of nine children. She grew up on a farm and spent plenty of time doing chores, according to her niece Caroline Huber. During the Great Depression, drought and dust storms devastated the family's crops, leading to the loss of the family farm. The Vogt family moved several times before settling in Adams, a small town 38 miles southwest of Rochester.

By the time of her First Communion, Vogt had already decided she wanted to lead a religious life. She entered the Sisters of St. Francis and took her first vows in 1943. In those early years, she dedicated herself to her education, earning bachelor's degrees in education and biology. She soon discovered a love for teaching science and moved to Australia in 1974 to teach at an all-girls high school. But it was a visit to Hong Kong and a single photograph that would forever change Vogt's life.

Jax recalled that while living in Australia, Vogt got the chance to visit Hong Kong and took a picture of a shipyard. It wasn't until she returned home and developed the film that she saw she had inadvertently captured the image of a poor girl staring into the camera.

"When she got the picture back, she kept saying all the time, "This child is saying, 'What will you do for me?'' And that's what changed the course of her life was this little kid's picture," Jax said.

From that moment on, Vogt focused on helping educate the poor. She joined the Peace Corps and worked in Sierra Leone for 10 years helping establish teacher training centers in remote villages across the country. Then she traveled to Thailand and taught at a Cambodian refugee camp through the Catholic Office of Emergency Relief and Refugees. She eventually moved to Cambodia and began work establishing an English language school. The work meant starting from scratch, and Vogt wrote all of the curriculum for the school herself. She also came up with science experiments and props to help engage the students in the curriculum, Jax said.

Yuwatey Suy, director of business affairs for the Sisters of Saint Francis, said Vogt's honesty and integrity became well known in Cambodia. Suy and her family fled war-torn Cambodia and later immigrated to the United States.

"I heard from people in Cambodia that this school is corruption free. The whole village knows, the whole city knows, the whole town knows at that school you don't cheat, that school will not take bribes. And that is from Sister Joseen," Suy said. "It is the best school in town."

Those who knew her said she rarely talked about God. Nonetheless, everyone knew her religious faith is what drove her to commit herself to helping the impoverished. She detailed how she believed her life was guided by God in her memoir, "Itchy Feet: Walking Humbly with God."

"She was devoted to her God, and I think that's where she got all of her talent from," Jax said.

After spending nearly three decades overseas, Vogt returned to Assisi Heights. But the 4-foot-8-inches-tall woman known for her high energy and passion for education wasn't about to slow down. She began teaching English at Hawthorne Education Center in Rochester. One of her students was a former Colombian soldier with no eyes as the result of a facially disfiguring wound. She patiently helped him learn to read by making individual letters out of heavy cord and cardboard and teaching the man to recognize letters by feeling them.

Adult Literacy Coordinator Kim Fanning said Vogt was extremely patient and had a gift for connecting with her students.

"Everybody felt they were very important in her life," Fanning said.

Vogt kept up tutoring until March when she began struggling with her health. Fanning said Vogt lived a very simple, humble life and refused to accept any gifts or cards. Even so, her co-workers insisted they hold a small retirement party for the long-time educator at Assisi Heights.

Fanning said one of Vogt's core beliefs was that everyone deserved the chance to have a quality education.

She added, "She wanted to make sure that everyone had the same opportunities. She really did live what she believed."