Mary Katherine Ballard Gardner

Mary Katherine Ballard Gardner, 97, of Blairsville, Ga., passed into Glory on February 27, 2008 at Union General Hospital.

Mrs. Gardner was born in Fulton County, Ga., October 21, 1910. She was the granddaughter of a Baptist minister, J.E. Daniel and daughter of W. Kimsey and Flora RDC Ballard. Rev. Daniel was the founder of Orchard Knob Baptist Church in south Atlanta where Mary Katherine, Oscar and their children worshiped.

Mary Katherine loved missions. She taught mission studies all over Georgia and at Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly near Asheville, N.C. She and Oscar traveled around the world and served two years as lay missionaries in Japan where one of her daughters, Flo Love Hernden and her late husband Max Love, also were missionaries.

She was a Sunday school teacher at the First Baptist Church of Fayetteville, Ga. She resided with her daughter, Carolyn Brand during her final two years in Fayetteville. Her last six years of life were spend living with her daughter and son-in-law, Rebecca and Douglas Collins. She had many friends here in Blairsville. She was a towering strength of Christian love, a devoted wife and a cherished mother. "Her children arise up, and call her blessed..."

Proverbs 31:28 KJV.)

Mrs. Gardner was preceded in death by her husband, Oscar W. Gardner, Sr.; and her oldest

son, Edward, was killed

in 1952.

She is survived by her children, Mary Delores Kilpatrick of

Fla., Carolyn Brand

Jackson of Ga. (and

Fla.), Oscar W. Gardner Jr., Hampton, Ga., Flora Love Hernden of Blairsville, Leroy W. Gardner of McDonough, Ga., Charles C. Gardner of Newnan, Ga., Rebecca G. Collins of Blairsville, and Don L. Gardner of Tiger, Ga.; brother, A. Brooke Ballard of Fayetteville, Ga.; over 100 grand, great-grand and greatgreat grandchildren. The three grandchildren who live in Blairsville are David Love, Rachel Allison and Reuel Collins.

Her funeral service was held Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. at C. J. Mowell & Son Chapel, Fayetteville, Ga., with Rev. Jimmy Patterson and Rev. J.W. Hutchins officiating. Tom Gullatt, a missionary to Japan for forty years and a long-time family friend, gave words of comfort and thanksgiving for her life. A nephew, Mark Ballard of Fayetteville, Ga., played his violin, "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and then sang "His Eye Is On the Sparrow." Bob Kilpatrick of Fair Oaks, Calif., sang the song he had written years before in her honor, "Footprints To Follow On The Highway Of the King."