John Wesley Rosenberger, 80, of Casselberry, died on December 5, 2018 at Winter Park hospital of natural causes. He was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa, to John Anthony Rosenberger and Evelyn Roberta Wightman on April 11, 1938. He attended Cedar Falls High School and graduated with the class of 1956. He continued on to Vennard College, University Park, Iowa, and then to Drake Theological Seminary in Des Moines, Iowa, where he earned his Master of Divinity.
He was commissioned in May 1967 into the United States Army. He deployed as a Chaplain (Captain) in the Counter Offensive Phase VI and the TET 69 Counter Offensive between November 1968 and November 1969. He served in a M.A.S.H. unit, and received two Bronze Star medals, the National Defense Service Metal, the Vietnam Service Medal, and the Vietnam Campaign Medal.
He married Lola Mae Erb of Amenia, North Dakota, on November 21, 1969. They had two children.
He was an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and part of Iowa Conference. He served several wonderful churches over his 39-year Iowa career in Central City, Meservey, Walcott and Hartley, Iowa. He retired in 2001 and moved to the Orlando area. There, he took a part-time pastoral position at Bear Lake United Methodist Church, Apopka, in 2003. He remained at Bear Lake until his second retirement in 2015.
He was known for his sense of humor, his affinity for nicknames, his love of the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Minnesota Vikings.
He is survived by his wife, Lola; their daughter Mary Ann of Palm Coast (Lt. Colonel Christian Magnell); Anthony John of Oklahoma City; grandchildren Calvin Brotherton of Iowa City, Iowa; Wesley and Margaret Magnell of Palm Coast; as well as sisters Virginia (Damgaard), Sally (Robinson) and Mary (Kough) of Iowa, and Susannah (Rice), Maryland.
A funeral service will be held December 16, 2018 at 3:00 p.m. at Asbury United Methodist Church, with visitation at 2:00 p.m. An interment will follow, with military honors, at the Veterans cemetery in Bushnell.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to a Global Impact Missions, a clean water initiative that builds clean-water wells in Kenya. Donations can be made to: Global Impact Missions, P.O. Box 910254, Lexington, KY, 40591.