Obit: Gardner, Ella Amelia #2 (1914 - 2007)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Gardner, Haines, Jordan, Phillips, Kogut, Liebzeit, Goeser

----Sources: Clark County Press (Neillsville, WI.) September 19, 2007

Gardner, Ella Amelia (1914 - September 11, 2007)

Ella Amelia Gardner, 93, died peacefully on September 11, 2007, at her residence in the Independent Living Retirement Center, Madison, Wis.

Born in 1914 to Gina and Robert Haines near Montfort, WI in Grant County, she graduated from Granton High School in 1932, earned a teaching certificate from Neillsville in 1933, and taught for two years at Kurth Rural School (eight grades) in Clark County. Ella attended summer school at the Chicago Art Institute in 1936 and felt a lifelong identity as an artist.

In 1937, she married Russell Robert Gardner, another rural grade-school teacher. Offspring include Russell, Jr., Wayne Stanley, and Keith Allen. Ella and her husband operated a Clark County dairy farm for 41 years then relocated close to Marshfield in 1983.

She enjoyed traveling with family. Ella loved flowers and other plants all of her life. Interested in politics, she worked regularly at the polls during elections. She renovated a house in Marshfield, where she lived before moving to Madison last year to be near Russell, Jr. and his wife Suzanne.

Her art career began formally in 1964, after her youngest son graduated from high school. She participated actively in the Wisconsin Regional Arts Program and exhibited her work at the Central Wisconsin State Fair in Marshfield regularly for forty years. In 1998 she published a book, A Celebration of Life, which featured paintings and drawings with personal and family narratives. Ella’s art was exhibited in solo shows in Granton, Neillsville, Marshfield, Menomonie, Wisconsin Rapids, Fort Atkinson, and Madison. She felt honored to be included in Marquis Who’s Who of American Women and the Archives of The National Museum of Women in the Arts.

She is survived by Russell Jr. (Suzanne) and Wayne (Ane); five grandchildren, Rebecca Jordan (Jon), Linda Gardner Phillips (Rick), and Martha (Amy Kogut), Robert (Anna) and Benjamin Gardner; seven great-grandchildren; and siblings, Francis (Evelyn), Glenn (Nita) and Gene Haines and Anne Liebzeit.

She was preceded in death by her husband; son Keith; parents; and sister, Rebecca Goeser.

A memorial gathering will be held 11 a.m., Sunday, Oct. 14, 2007 at the Belvedere Supper Club, Highway 97 North, Marshfield, WI.