Waldvogel, Isolina Alves Avelino (1892–1980)

Isolina Alves Avelino Waldvogel was a poet, writer, translator, editor, and reviewer of the Brazilian Publishing House.¹

Early Years

Isolina Alves Avelino Waldvogel was born on May 16, 1892, in the city of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. Her parents, Pedro Celestino da Costa Avelino and Maria das Neves Avelino, were also born in Rio Grande do Norte.² Pedro Celestino was an educated man and a distinguished journalist in the Brazilian Northeast who built a solid literary career. Devoted to the Republican ideal, he was active in the Brazilian political scenario in a time when the Republic was emerging in Brazil.³

Isolina Celestino was raised in an erudite upper-middle-class family and grew up in a culturally rich environment.⁴ Her talent for languages was apparent during her childhood, when she learned to read by herself even before she entered school. She started elementary school in a Catholic institution and finished high school in an Evangelical establishment.⁵ While she lived with her parents in the city of Recife, Pernambuco, she showed interest in learning foreign languages, and, with the help of private teachers, she became fluent not only in Portuguese but also in French and English. Later, her family moved to Rio de Janeiro, which was the Brazilian capital.⁶

Baptism and Marriage

Isolina first learned about Adventism through attending a series of evangelistic meetings conducted by Pastors Emanuel C. Ehlers and Frederico Kümpel.⁷ However, during the meetings, her family moved to a distant neighborhood. Then Pastor Ehlers started to mail Isolina summaries of the meetings and answer her questions about the themes she was studying. At last, in 1915, Pastor Ehlers baptized Isolina in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

A little later, Isolina moved to São Paulo to study in the Adventist Seminary (now UNASP-SP).⁸ There, participating in “English Table” meetings, a group with the goal of learning this language, she met Luiz Waldvogel. They began to exchange notes and started dating.⁹ They both graduated in the first class of the technical teaching course of the Adventist Seminary on December 8, 1922, alongside Adelina Zorub, Adolfo Bergold, Alma Meyer, Domingos Peixoto da Silva, Rodolfo Belz, Tereza Filonila dos Santos, and Guilherme Denz.¹⁰ After graduation, on April 3, 1923, Isolina and Luiz married in a ceremony officiated by Pastor Ricardo Wilfarth.¹¹ Their only child, Heloísa Waldvogel, was born in 1925.¹² Her husband, Luiz, contributed greatly to the Adventist Church in Brazil working as a writer, translator, and editor at the Brazilian Publishing House, where he served for more than 40 years.¹³

Teaching, Translating, and Managerial Positions

In 1923, Isolina Waldvogel was hired to teach for an Adventist school in the city of Santo André, São Paulo. Under precarious conditions in the basement of the South Brazil Union Conference headquarters, Mrs. Waldvogel taught 15 students. At that time, the union conference included the conferences of the states of São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, and Santa Catarina and the missions of the West of Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, and Goiás.¹⁴

In January 1924, Isolina Waldvogel was called to join J. Berger Johnson and her husband as editors for the Society of International Treaties. There, she worked as a translator, reviewer, and editor until 1929, when she left the position to dedicate time to her daughter’s education. After leaving the office, she continued translating from her home.¹⁵ Mrs. Waldvogel was an excellent translator; one classic example is the book, “The Desire of Ages,” which she translated into Portuguese in 1943.¹⁶ Mrs. Waldvogel translated published materials from English, French, Italian, and Spanish into Portuguese¹⁷ for a total of 17 books and two compilations of Ellen G. White’s writings.¹⁸

Isolina Waldvogel also wrote and translated hundreds of poems. She translated several poems for the Quarterly Missionary review and published her own poetry book with the Brazilian Publishing House named Oferenda (Offering). In addition, she translated hymns for the Brazilian Adventist Hymnal (Hinário Adventista), Melodias de Vitórias, Louvores Infantis, and for the Voice of Prophecy quartet. She also collaborated for the magazines O Atalaia (The Sentinel), Adventist Review, and Juventude (Youth) for many years.¹⁹

In 1935, Isolina Waldvogel was appointed to head the education department of the São Paulo Conference, which included the state of São Paulo and part of the southwestern area of the state of Minas Gerais. During her management, she visited churches to promote to parents the importance of Christian education for their children. She followed up on everything Adventist schools needed in order to be in compliance with state educational authorities.²⁰ In Santo André Adventist Church, for 11 consecutive years, she was a deaconess and director of the Ladies’ Charity Society (now Adventist Solidarity Action). In addition, she conducted ingathering efforts, Bible studies, and lectures for engaged couples as well as offered services such as handicraft courses for alcoholics and illiterate people.²¹

Contribution and Legacy

In June 1970, Isolina and her husband left the city of Santo André and moved to Hortolândia, São Paulo.²² Isolina Alves Avelino Waldvogel died on July 6, 1980, at age 88 in the city of São Paulo and was buried in the Campo Grande Cemetery.²³ Her work in the literary area through the translation of denominational and Spirit of Prophecy books into Portuguese and the writing of articles, books, and poetry²⁴ contributed to the dissemination of the Adventist message in the Brazilian territory.

Sources

Alves, Guarino. “Antônio Alves de Oliveira na Academia Potiguar de Letras.” Revista do Instituto Ceará. 1993. Accessed May 5, 2018. https://www.institutodoceara.org.br/revista.php.

“Isolina Waldvogel.” Revista Adventista. August 1980. Accessed May 4, 2016. http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/.

Lopatka, Lênie. “Isolina Avelino Waldvogel: Abordagens Implícitas na Prática de Tradução de Poemas.” Graduation Coursework, Engenheiro Coelho of the Centro Universitário Adventista de São Paulo, 2013.

“Luiz Waldvogel.” Revista Adventista. September 1990. Accessed May 6, 2016. http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/.

Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia. Second revised edition. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1996. S.v. “Waldvogel, Isolina A.”

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook. Washington D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1925. Accessed April 6, 2018. http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Yearbooks/YB1925.pdf.

Waldvogel, Luiz. Memórias de Tio Luiz. Tatuí, SP: Casa Publicadora Brasileira, 1988.

Notes

1. Lênie Lopatka, “Isolina Avelino Waldvogel: Abordagens Implícitas na Prática de Tradução de Poemas” (Graduation Coursework, Engenheiro Coelho of the Centro Universitário Adventista de São Paulo, 2013), 15.↩

2. “Isolina Waldvogel,” Revista Adventista, August 1980, accessed May 4, 2016, http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/.↩

3. Guarino Alves, “Antônio Alves de Oliveira na Academia Potiguar de Letras,” Revista do Instituto do Ceará, 1993, accessed May 5, 2018, https://www.institutodoceara.org.br/revista.php.↩

4. Lopatka, 19.↩

5. “Isolina Waldvogel,” Revista Adventista, August 1980, accessed May 4, 2016, http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/.↩

6. Lopatka, 15, 20.↩

7. Ibid., 15.↩

8. “Isolina Waldvogel,” Revista Adventista, August 1980, accessed May 4, 2016, http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/.↩

9. Lopatka, 15, 20.↩

10. Luiz Waldvogel, Memórias de Tio Luiz (Tatuí, SP: Casa Publicadora Brasileira, 1988), 75.↩

11. Ibid. p. 112.↩

12. Ibid. p. 119-120.↩

13. “Luiz Waldvogel,” Revista Adventista, September 1990, accessed May 6, 2016, http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/.↩

14. Ibid., 179; Lopatka, 23.; and “South Brazil Union Conference,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1925), p. 162.↩

15. “Isolina Waldvogel,” Revista Adventista, August 1980, accessed May 4, 2016, http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/; Waldvogel, 142.↩

16. Lopatka, 25; and Waldvogel, 131.↩

17. Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, second revised edition (1996), s.v. “Waldvogel, Isolina A.”↩

18. Lopatka, 68-70.↩

19. “Isolina Waldvogel,” Revista Adventista, August 1980, accessed May 4, 2016, http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/.↩

20. Waldvogel, 187; “Isolina Waldvogel,” Revista Adventista, August 1980, accessed May 4, 2016, http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/.↩

21. “Isolina Waldvogel,” Revista Adventista, August 1980, accessed May 4, 2016, http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/; Lopatka, 26-27.↩

22. Lopatka, 32; and “Luiz Waldvogel,” Revista Adventista, September 1990, accessed May 6, 2016, http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/.↩

23. “Isolina Waldvogel,” Revista Adventista, August 1980, accessed May 4, 2016, http://acervo.revistaadventista.com.br/.↩

24. Lopatka, 16.↩