SSG Ford Van Hagen, M.D.
1927 – 2004
USAR
WWII
Ford Van Hagen was born August 11, 1927 in Chicago, to George E. Van Hagen, Jr. of Barrington and Ardietta Ford of St. Paul, Minnesota.
He was a 1945 graduate of Culver Military Academy and served in the U.S. Army for 18 months.
Van Hagen graduated from Princeton University in 1951 with a BS in Biology. He received his master's and medical degrees from Northwestern University Medical School in 1955, and served his internship and surgical residency at Passavant Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Dr. Van Hagen practiced surgery for 41 years in Springfield, taught in medical schools, and directed surgery departments throughout his career.
He married Jane Fulton in Chicago on June 28, 1952, and they had three children before divorcing. He remarried in 1964; he and his second wife, Judith Vicars, raised two children.
In his youth, Van Hagen was an equestrian, but music was his lifetime passion; in Springfield he was a founding member of Los Medicos Locos Band and the Medical Madness Variety Show, which ran for 12 years.
SSG Ford Van Hagen, M.D. died Sept. 25, 2004, in Springfield, Illinois, and is buried with family members in Barrington’s Evergreen Cemetery.
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Remember. Honor. Teach.
Courtesy of Signal Hill Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.