GARDNER, Clark E.

GARDNER, BUSH

Posted By: Gordon Felland (email)
Date: 6/27/2009 at 20:42:08

Clark E. Gardner is the vice president and manager of the Gardner Nursery Company of Osage. It is true that he entered upon a business already established, but he has displayed initiative in extending its interests and is now active in control of what is one of the most important commercial enterprises of this section of the state.

He was born in Osage, November 17, 1872, and is a son of Captain Charles Fitch Gardner, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work. After attending the public schools he continued his education in the Cedar Valley Seminary, where he pursued a special course and also took the work of the business department. Thus well trained for life's practical and responsible duties, he became actively associated with his father in the nursery business, being made a member of the firm of Gardner & Son. To him was given the task of supervising the agents of the company who were upon the road selling nursery stock. Believing that there was a still more advantageous field to be entered through the mail order business, he organized that department, which was under his immediate direction and which he developed to extensive proportions. He continued to move forward as the mail order representative of the business and soon had in charge the complete management of the interests of the Gardner Nursery Company, of which he was made vice president, treasurer and manager upon the incorporation of the business. There is no phase of the trade with which he is not familiar, and his long practical experience and close study enable him to wisely supervise and direct the extensive and important interests under his care.

On the 18th of August, 1898, Mr. Gardner was united in marriage to Miss Grace Bush, a native of Osage, Iowa, and a daughter of Professor Alva and Eliza Jane Bush, who came to this state from the east. Her father was long connected with the Cedar Valley Seminary and passed away in the '80s. Mr. and Mrs. Gardner have two adopted children, Bertha and Robert E.

In fraternal connections Mr. Gardner is a Knight of Pythias and is a past chancellor commander of the lodge at Osage. He served for ten years as a member of the school board of Osage and has ever been an interested champion of the cause of education. He was a member of the board of trustees of the Cedar Valley Seminary for ten years or more and acted as vice president of the board. Both he and his wife occupy an enviable social position and he has reached a high standing in business circles.

Source: History of Mitchell and Worth Counties, Iowa, 1918, Vol. II, page 69.