Marguerite Mills Gardner

Marguerite died Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at Prescott Samaritan Village in Prescott, Arizona.  She was born December 6, 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona; the daughter of Edgar David and Anna Maria (Undem) Mills.  Marguerite was 104 years old.   Her parents were sojourning at the home of Edwin Lamson, founder of the Lamson Business College, in 1903 on their way to California, when Marguerite Mills was born in the Lamson house at Central Avenue and Osborne Road in Phoenix; Lamson was her uncle. Marguerite grew up with two sisters and one brother at family homes in Riverside, California, and moved to Phoenix in the early 20s after completing junior college.  There she met and married William (Bill) N. Gardner in 1926. Their daughter Julie was born one year later in Riverside and their son Bill arrived three years later in 1930 in Phoenix.   The 30s were Depression years and her husband was fortunate to find employment with the Internal Revenue Service, which took the family to Jacksonville, Florida.  Marguerite and Bill lived in that city until his retirement and then moved in 1970 to Sun City, Arizona, where Bill's two sisters lived. Less than a year after the move, Bill passed away, but Marguerite continued her life in Sun City until 2001. Her daughter had relocated from Chicago to Prescott in the 80s and Marguerite moved up here to an apartment at Las Fuentes, where she lived until her illness this December.   Though she would have described herself as a housewife, Marguerite was an accomplished seamstress, a consummate gardener, a craftsman, and a lady with a quirky sense of humor. She always wore a Halloween costume, even this past year. She was also inclined to rhymes ? she wrote and illustrated amusing, adventurous poems for each of her first great-grandchildren. (But she had started long ago -- she also wrote the class poem in her senior year in high school!).   She was a whiz at games, playing bridge and Scrabble until her diminishing eyesight made it too difficult -- but that was in her 102nd year! And she bowled down in Sun City until the time she moved to Prescott.   Marguerite Gardner is survived by her daughter, Julie of Prescott, son Bill of Perth, Western Australia; five grandchildren -- Kate  of Wasilla, Alaska, Elaine and Rachel of Memphis Tennessee, and Tom and Will of Perth, Western Australia. She has nine great-grandchildren in the USA and Australia.