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Harold Gardner |
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Harold Gardner, faithful soldier of the cross, and gospel preacher for nearly a half century,
laid aside his armor and slipped the bonds of time February 11, 2007 at the age of 79 years,
10 months and 11 days.
It was my humble privilege to speak at his funeral which was conducted February 14th from the meeting house of the church of Christ in Burns Flat, Oklahoma. His earthly remains were interred in the South Burns Cemetery, awaiting the sure and certain resurrection. Harold was born April 1, 1927 at Wolfe City, Texas to John Chester and Ora Anna (Dees) Gardner. His maternal grandparents, J. D. and Alice Dees were New Testament Christians who had been baptized by John Lincoln, a nephew of Abraham Lincoln, in the Brazos River. He is survived by his wife, Elvina; four sons, Harold Grady, Joseph Dean, John Mark, and Roy Gene; one daughter, Teresa Lynn; and 10 grandchildren. Brother Harold was a dear friend whom I met while we were students in the Elk City School of Preaching in the 1960s. I knew him as a man who dearly loved the Lord, his wife, children and grandchildren, and whose supreme aim in life was to serve the Lord, teach his family to do the same and go to heaven at last. Never seeking the honor of men, Harold was one of that great host of faithful preachers who labor in small, difficult fields that brother Foy E. Wallace, Jr. called, "the country crossroads." He never wrote a book, spoke on prestigious lectureships, nor had his name emblazoned on a great memorial, but his name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life. He was a man of the Bible who faithfully preached it and whose firm faith in the Christ it reveals sustained him in life and in death. I was with him and Elvina the day his doctor came to his room at the Great Plains Regional Medical Center in Elk City, Okla. to tell him he would die of cancer. "You have what we call 'the dwindles'," the doctor said. "You are just dwindling away." In his characteristic, straight forward manner, and in the full assurance expressed by the apostle Paul in Second Corinthians 4:16-5:1, Harold looked the doctor in the eye, patted himself on the chest and said, "This may be dwindling, but I'm not." Then, he asked the doctor if he was a Christian and urged him to think about his state before God. Even in the face of death, his spirits were high and he never lost his sense of humor. He and Elvina asked me if I would speak at his funeral and I tearfully told them I would be honored to do so. I stood near his hospital bed wearing a coat with a missing button when he called me closer to him. As I stood beside him, he reached out, pointed to where the button was missing and said, "If you're going to preach my funeral, would you get another button on that coat?" Like the apostle Paul, Harold worked in the Lord's kingdom for many years as a "tent making" preacher, working at secular jobs while he preached publicly and from house to house. He served in the United States Navy during World War Two, entering the service at age 16 in 1944. Following boot camp, he served aboard the USS Whitehurst during his entire naval service. He was discharged as a Helmsman 1C, due to his mother's illness, after 13 months. After his return from service, he moved to Dallas and stayed with a cousin and her husband while working at Ford Motor Company's Dallas assembly plant. He attended worship with them at the Kaufman Highway congregation, where he was baptized into Christ in 1950. It was there he first prepared himself to become a gospel preacher, attending a preacher's training class at night after working all day on the assembly line at the Ford plant. On Dec. 31, 1955, he and Elvina Weeks were united in marriage by Homer Matthis, an elder and part-time preacher of the Oaklawn church in Dallas, Texas where they worshipped. Bill Kinney was the preacher at Oaklawn and he and Harold spent a great deal of time together conducting Bible studies in people's homes. It was Bill Kinney who encouraged Harold to preach the gospel, and in 1958 the Gardners moved to Frisco, Texas. Harold became the local preacher for the Frisco church and labored there for two years while continuing to work for Ford in Dallas. In 1960, the family moved to Princeton, Texas where Harold worked as the local evangelist while still working at his job with Ford. After laboring in Princeton for two years, he resigned his job with Ford and in 1962 entered full time local work for the church of Christ in Malajamar, New Mexico. He remained there until 1964 when he moved to Willisville, Arkansas. From Willisville, he moved to Willow, Oklahoma in 1966, "working under good elders." During his tenure with the Willow church he attended the Elk City School of Preaching under the directorship of W. R. Craig. He preached at Willow until 1971 when he moved to Dill City, Oklahoma, preaching there for about two and a half years. He then returned to secular work, moving east of Cordell, Oklahoma where he worked for a member of the church who raised laying hens. But during that time, he continued to preach the gospel, working with the church in Gotebo, Oklahoma. In December 1977, he became the first full time located preacher for the church in Arapaho, Oklahoma, leaving there to move to Laverne, Oklahoma a year later. He worked with the Laverne church for two years. While he lived in Laverne, he operated a cafe in nearby Arnett, Oklahoma, driving to Arnett each Lord's day to preach for the church there. In 1983 he sold the cafe and moved to Arnett. While he was living in Arnett, John Kirkpatrick, of Shattuck, Oklahoma, asked him to preach for the Shattuck church since they did not have a preacher. So, for 8 years Harold drove from Arnett to Shattuck to preach at 9:00 a.m. each Sunday, then back to Arnett for Bible class and worship. He would return Sunday evening to Shattuck for evening worship, and then drive back to Arnett for evening worship there. Toward the end of his "circuit" work, he became eligible for Social Security and told the elders at Arnett that they could afford to support a full time man, and that he would continue to work with the Shattuck church in his "part-time capacity." This he did, spending about 17 years working with the Shattuck church. In 1994, while still preaching at Shattuck, he established a hunting guide business and began training bird dogs. Elvina worked with him in the business, cooking for the hunters and keeping their quarters. During this period, he preached at Vici, Oklahoma for about a year and a half. When Elvina became ill and unable to continue working with him in their business, they sold it and moved to Chillicothe, Texas where he again labored full time for the church. After two years in Texas, they moved to Geary, Oklahoma where Harold worked at a camp operated by the brethren, but his health was failing and he had to resign that work after a year. He and Elvina then moved to Burns Flat, Oklahoma to be near their son Mark and his wife. Through their married life, they withstood the storms that buffet us all, standing faithfully side-by-side. His last days were spent at home with Elvina by his side, as she had been for more than a half-century, and she was with him when he took his flight from earthly realms. His 56 years of labor for the Lord now ended, he rests in the blessed assurance that his "labors are not in vain in the Lord," (1 Corinthians 15:58) and that he "fought a good fight," and "kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7). How sweet is the thought of reunion, in that land across which no shadow falls, with the unknown number of souls he led to the Lord in his life of selfless preaching. Harold Gardner was a great man because he aspired to be no more than a child of God and a simple preacher of the gospel of Christ. May God give us more like him who walk in the steps of Jesus, laboring selflessly in the cause that is greater than us all. |