Individual Details

Burial

Obit provided by Mary Hoover

Virginia Lee Briles Gardner
January 13, 1929 to December 19, 2016

Virginia Lee Briles Gardner was born January 13, 1929 in her parents’ home above their store in Richter, Kansas.  She was the third daughter of John Charles and Dessie Duvall Briles.  When Virginia was small, her family moved to a farm near Pomona, Kansas, where she grew up helping her parents around the farm.  With no brothers, she and her 3 sisters were her “daddy’s boys”.  She told many stories about her days growing up on the farm, including making molasses as a family, working in the field alongside her father, and detasseling corn for a neighbor.  She attended school in Pomona, and graduated from high school in 1947.
Virginia then attended Kansas State University, graduating in 1951 with a degree in “Dietetics and Institutional Management”.  It was while a student at K-State that she met a dashing young man from Hartford.  She married Daniel Ray Gardner on June 9, 1951 at the Richter Methodist Church in Richter, Kansas.  The two made their home at the Gardner farm near Hartford.  The next spring, their first crop arrived: a bouncing baby boy….and then another baby, and another, and another!  It wasn’t long before they had 6 children.  They often have joked that kids were their very best crop.
Virginia was a member of Hartford United Methodist Church. Her faith in Jesus Christ was very important to her, and she was very active within the church as long as her health allowed.  She put her dietetics degree to use as a Penny Supper Chairman for many years, planning menus, organizing, recruiting volunteers, and preparing delicious food.  Some of her other responsibilities over the years within the church also included Methodist Women Chairman, Sunday School Superintendent, Church Board member, Youth Leader, and Bible School Teacher, to name a few.  She also served on the district United Methodist Women board.
As Sunday School Superintendent, Virginia taught the children to memorize scripture.  Every child who memorized Psalm 100 and Psalm 23 earned a special prize.  She wanted them to plant God’s Word in their hearts.  While she was teaching Bible School one year, a young boy about 5 or 6 years old looked her straight in the eye and said “Do you really believe all this stuff?”.  Without skipping a beat, she looked straight back and him and said “Yes I do.  It’s true, every bit of it.”.  She never forgot about that incident, and years later she was thrilled to see his children in church.
Virginia loved music and loved to sing.  She was often asked to sing duets with Shirley Thomas at church activities.  When her children were small, she would often sing Sunday School songs with them while they were working together doing work around the farm.  In later years, she lost her singing voice, which was frustrating to her, but she still enjoyed listening to music often.
Raising 6 children is not an easy task, but Virginia dealt with all of the stitches, broken bones, illnesses, sibling spats, and more with grace and discernment.  Her children each learned early in life that it wasn’t a good idea to tell Mom that they were bored.  She would find them plenty to do.  She maintained that kids were less likely to get into trouble if they had responsibilities to keep them busy, and her large garden provided plenty of opportunities for kids to perform assigned responsibilities such as pulling weeds and harvesting vegetables.  On a farm, there were always chores that needed to be done.  Virginia also realized that kids are kids, and gave them plenty of time to explore the family farm and just be kids.
Virginia didn’t tolerate temper tantrums or her kids fighting.  She stressed that they needed to figure out how to get along with each other.  If they got into a fight on a cold day, they were asked to go to the back porch, which wasn’t heated, until they could cool off.  It usually didn’t take long before they were ready to get along.
The Gardner kids grew up with rules.  Right was right, and wrong was wrong.  There were certain things you just didn’t do or say; a line you didn’t cross.  Virginia didn’t believe in telling her children “just wait until your daddy gets home.”  Her dark brown eyes could stare down even the most delinquent of her children, and she disciplined her kids if they needed it.  This included any nieces or nephews who happened to be visiting, but all would tell you today that if she disciplined them, they needed it, and it made them better people in the long run.  Some of the grandchildren also have stories about what might happen if you misbehaved while in Grandma’s care.  The fact is that Virginia loved each of her children and grandchildren way too much to let them get by with things they knew they shouldn’t do.
While Virginia was pretty strict with her children and grandchildren, she was also very kind, loving and generous with them.  Each grandchild received a hand-knit stocking from Grandma for their first Christmas.  Many years, every child and grandchild received a hand-made gift from her for Christmas.  Virginia was always interested in what her children and grandchildren were learning and doing, and encouraged them to work hard to achieve their goals.
Virginia was adventuresome and a little competitive, and this led to some interesting situations from time to time.  One day while she was driving to town, she spotted a rattlesnake stretched out on the road sunning himself.  For some reason, she decided that she needed to kill that snake, so she rolled down her window and stopped with her back tire on top of the snake’s head.  She then instructed Elizabeth, who was about 3 years old to stay in the car no matter what happened, found a paring knife in the glove compartment, got out and cut the snake’s head off.  She got back into the car, then said “The boys and your daddy will never believe what I just did.”  She then got back out and cut the rattles off the tail, got back in the car, and finished her day’s work.  After supper that night, when the family was still visiting around the table, she proudly brought out the rattles and told them she had killed the snake with a paring knife.  The looks on their faces were priceless.  None of the boys ever topped that rattlesnake story.
At one point, David decided that he wanted to take entomology as a 4-H project.  He worked hard collecting insects all summer, but still wanted to catch a dragonfly for his collection.  He tried and tried, but still hadn’t been successful in catching one, so Virginia loaded him into the car and took him down beside the pond to catch a dragonfly.  She spotted a dragonfly, zoned in on it, and the chase was on.  As with many things, if she decided she was going to do something, it was going to happen.  She didn’t give up.  Virginia scored, and the dragonfly was captured.  She walked back to the car, sat for a minute, then revealed that she had nearly passed out, but the mission had been a success.
Virginia had a great sense of humor, which helped her to face many of life’s stresses.  When the children were young, she was busy getting all of them to the county fair with all of their entries.  David was not old enough to be in 4-H, but wanted to have an entry like the bigger kids, so she gathered up some freshly harvested clover seed in a bag, and off to the fair they went.  Once there, she started sending kids to various locations with their entries to get them into place.  She grabbed the bag and sent David to enter his seed.  Shortly after, she noticed another paper bag, and upon checking the contents realized that it held the clover seed.  She had sent David with Fred’s chicken feed to be entered as clover seed.  Gene Walker was the superintendent, and she sheepishly went to retrieve the chicken feed and exchange it for the seed.  Gene had opened the sack, saw what had happened, and was patiently waiting for her to realize her mistake.  The exchange was made, and both of them laughed about that incident for the rest of their lives.
Besides home and family, Virginia was also involved in her community.  While her children were growing up, she served as a 4-H sewing leader, teaching many girls in the community how to sew.  She also traveled to Washington DC to a volunteer leaders’ convention as a 4-H volunteer.  Later, she served on the Hartford Library Board.  She was a member of the Eagle Creek Extension Homemaker Unit and the quilt guild.  She also belonged to Altrusa International of Emporia, for many years.
Each year at Christmas, Virginia would make a lot of Christmas braids.  She would then load the family in the car, and they would drive around the community to homes to deliver the braids and some fresh sausage and sing Christmas carols.  A few years, she even made one of the kids dress in a Santa suit for the deliveries.
Virginia wanted her family to have a broad worldview, and understand other peoples and cultures.  Because of this, she insisted that the family host IFYE exchangees from Belgium, USSR, Turkey, Wales, and Japan.  She loved to visit with the people from other countries and learn about their cultures.  She also taught them a lot about life on a farm in Kansas.
Virginia lived a very full life, and accomplished much.  Were we to try to mention all that she did in her nearly 88 years of life, it would take a long time and we would surely miss many details.  Each of us have our own stories and memories of Virginia.  She faced the joys, heartaches, and challenges that life brought her way with faith in God, hard work, and a great sense of humor.  She didn’t complain when life got tough, she just kept doing what she needed to do to live each day to the fullest.
Virginia passed away December 19, 2016 at the Life Care Center in Burlington, Kansas, where she had lived for the last 3 weeks of her life.  She was preceded in death by her parents John Charles and Dessie Duvall Briles; 2 sisters: Dorothy Apgar and Beth Gentry; and one grandson Owen Briles Gardner.
She is survived by her husband of over 65 years, Daniel Ray Gardner of Hartford.  She is also survived by 4 sons: George and Sharon Gardner of St. George, Fred and Jackie Gardner of Garnett, David and Nancy Gardner of Newton, and Vernon Gardner of Luellen, Nebraska; 2 daughters: Mary Hoover of Lyons, and Elizabeth and Kevin Fox of Syracuse; 19 grandchildren; 13 great grandchildren; one sister, Beverly Swenson of Broomfield, Colorado; and numerous nieces and nephews.
While we grieve that she is no longer here with us, those of us who knew and loved her believe because of her testimony of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that she is once again singing God’s praises.  Today we remember and celebrate a life well-lived.