Gardner Cromwell was born September 17, 1921, to C. G. and Eva Cromwell in St. Maries, Idaho. He was the eldest of three boys that would eventually include his brothers Charles and Holliday. When Gardner was 6 his family moved to Helena, Montana. It was there that Gardner was schooled and grew to adulthood. Following graduation from high school, Gardner went to New York and started Columbia University in the fall of 1938. Following Pearl Harbor, he interrupted his education to enlist in the Marines in 1942. He served in the Pacific Theatre and saw action on Guadalcanal and over the Pacific. He was a turret gunner and was shot down three times. He spent time recovering from his wounds and bouts with malaria in various Veterans' Hospitals. He was discharged in 1945 with the rank of Tech/Sgt. He then joined the Air Force Reserves, received his pilot's license, and attained the rank of First Lieutenant before being discharged in 1957. Following his 1945 discharge from the Marines, Gardner returned to Coeur d'Alene where his parents were living. In June of 1947, he married Carly Rhein in Helena, Montana. He enrolled in the University of Montana Law School in the fall of 1947. He graduated in 1950, and moved Carly and their infant son Larry to Coeur d'Alene to start a career in law and birth a second son, Terrence. His career took him, his wife Carly, and their growing family to Portland where Victoria was born in 1953, to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1954 for additional education in Law, and Manhasset, New York in 1955, to take a two year teaching position at New York University Law School. In 1957, Gardner, Carly, and Larry, Terrence, Victoria, and five week old Charlotte returned to Missoula to start teaching at the University of Montana Law School. Gardner retired from the university in 1982. In retirement, Gardner devoted his life to community service in a variety of ways. Reading for the blind, Hospice, Human Rights Task Force, Better Care, and students of the Heyburn are just a few of the organizations that benefited from Gardner's presence. Gardner sought the fellowship of the church wherever he went. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church while living in Missoula. He moved to Lincoln City, Oregon, and was a member of the Chapel by the Sea Presbyterian Church. In 1997, he came to St. Maries, and immediately joined the Community Presbyterian Church where he served several terms as an Elder and was on the Mission and Worship Committees, sang in the choir, and thought theologically. Gardner is survived by his sons and daughters-in-law Larry and Cherie Cromwell of Mt. Eliza, Victoria, Australia; Terrence and Mary Glynn Cromwell of Missoula, Montana; and his daughters and sons-in-law Victoria and Lon Withrow of Geraldine, Montana, and Charlotte and Curtis Davey of Missoula, Montana. Additional survivors are grand-children Erin and Evan Withrow, Lauren, David, and Charles Cromwell, and Christopher Davey. Gardner Cromwell died in December 5, 2010, in St. Maries, Idaho, at the age of 89. He will be interred in the Veterans Cemetery in Helena, Montana.
