Betty Miller Hoglen, 1930-2022
IMB Photo
Betty Miller Hoglen, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Venezuela and Paraguay, died May 3, 2022. She was 91.
Hoglen was born Sept. 23, 1930, in Union County, Tennessee, to the late George W. and Ida M. Wilson Miller. She wrote when seeking missionary appointment that she accepted Christ as her Savior when she was 13 and soon felt God’s calling to be a missionary, a feeling she kept secret for several years. One night when she was a junior in high school, she wrote, “After I had gone to bed, I prayed and promised the Lord that I would surrender my life to Him.” She then told her church about her decision.
She graduated from Everett High School in Maryville, Tennessee, and attended Carson-Newman College, Jefferson City, Tennessee, where she met her future husband Wilburn C. Hoglen. They were married soon after she received the Bachelor of Science.
While Wilburn finished his last year of college, Betty began teaching in Tennessee and later in Louisiana and Michigan as Wilburn attended seminary and served as pastor of several churches.
International missions had long had a special place in their hearts, she wrote. In 1969 the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) appointed them as missionaries to Venezuela. From then until retirement in 1995, they served there and in Paraguay, where Betty taught school in Asuncion.
After retirement, Betty served as minister to senior adults at First Baptist Church of Maryville for five years.
She was preceded in death by her husband Wilburn, who died in 2009 after 55 years of marriage.
She is survived by two sons, David Hoglen (Jennifer) of Mount Washington, Kentucky, and Dean Hoglen (Donna) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
A funeral service was held May 21 at McCammon Ammons Click Funeral Home, Maryville, Tennessee, with burial at Grandview Cemetery in Maryville.
Donations in Betty’s memory may be made to the International Mission Board, 3806 Monument Avenue, Richmond, VA 23230, or online at Generosity Resource Center – IMB Generosity.
Read an obituary here.