Barbara A. Gardner

Barbara was born in Saranac Lake on Sept. 29, 1932 and grew up in Vermontville with her aunt Florence and uncle Bill Boyea after the untimely deaths of her parents.

She worked various local odd jobs including the Troy Laundry and Stony Wold Sanatorium in order to buy a car and move to Rochester with her best friend and cousin June Begor. Shortly after moving she met and married her husband Joseph “Bud” Gardner in May 1959. They settled in Macedon a few years later with their son. She worked at Bausch & Lomb making prescription eye glass lenses for a short time before getting a job at a General Dynamics electronics plant where she was chosen for her specific skills to make some of the communication equipment for the astronaut’s helmets that landed on the moon in 1969.

In 1972, they moved to Vermontville where she worked as a Saranac Lake school bus driver until her retirement in 1991.

She will be remembered as a kind, gentle and lively spirited wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and friend. Her hobbies included working with power tools and hand tools to build or repair things, drawing and painting, gardening and putting puzzles together. She loved her family and pets unconditionally right up until dementia robbed her of those memories. She will live on in our hearts and memories as her spirit will be reunited with her husband and relatives that passed before her.

Barbara is survived by her son Ron (JoAnn) Gardner; her granddaughters Megan (husband Chris) Czadzeck; Brittany (husband Dane) DeGrace; her great-grand daughters Sophie, Grace, Addison and Tessa; her sisters Marion Callaghan (Lake Clear) and Grace Boyer (Florida) along with many nieces and nephews.

She was predeceased by her husband, parents, brother Robert Patnode and baby siblings.

Funeral arrangements are in care of the Fortune-Keough Funeral Home in Saranac Lake. At her request there will be no services. Anyone wishing to remember Barb may make memorial donations to St. Bernard’s School in care of the funeral home.

Family and friends can also share their memories and sign the online guestbook at fortunekeoughfuneralhome.com.