Virginia Kingswood Booth Vogel was born on July 30, 1908 in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, the only daughter of Ralph Harman Booth and Myrtle Mary Batterman Booth. Ralph Harman Booth was a cofounder of Booth Newspapers and a brother of George Gough Booth, founder of Cranbrook. Ralph Harman Booth was also the American Minister to Denmark in 1930, and served until his death in 1931. An art collector and patron, Booth was instrumental in the founding of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and served as the Institute's director as well as a member of its board of directors.

Virginia Booth graduated from Miss Hall's School in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1927. She married William Dickerman Vogel in Copenhagen in March of 1931. Their wedding was a grand affair, chronicled in newspapers around the world. Members of the Vogel wedding party included children of the Chilean and Norwegian ambassadors to Denmark, and the Danish king and queen sent orchids to the couple.

The Vogels lived in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts while William attended Harvard Business School and worked for Price Waterhouse. In 1940, they moved to Milwaukee, where Virginia entered into the civic and social affairs of the city. Her volunteering included work with the Junior League of Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Blood Center. Virginia, who inherited a great many works of art from her father upon his death, was known as a consummate art lover and purchased and donated many fine and renowned works of art of her own. She was a benefactor of the Milwaukee Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Milwaukee Public Library, Harvard University, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C, and was awarded the Milwaukee Arts Center's Friends of Art award in 1959. In 1976, she gave more than $1 million for an endowed acquisition fund at the Milwaukee Art Center. Five years later, she established another endowed fund of more than $1 million at the Milwaukee Foundation for the museum's operations. She was a member of the museum board's advisory council from the 1960s through the 1980s. She was once quoted as saying, "I have three loves--my family, my friends and art."

Virginia and William Vogel had four children, Frederick III, Ralph, Grace and Virginia. William Vogel died in 1980. Virginia Vogel died in Milwaukee in March 1998.