William S. Gardner

Dr. William Sisson Gardner, professor emeritus of gynecology at the University of Maryland Medical School and former chief of gynecology at Mercy Hospital, died yesterday afternoon at the home of his sister, Mrs. Blanche G. Powell, 5015 Falls Road Terrace. He was 86, and had been in ill health for several months.

Funeral services will be held at 2 PM tomorrow at Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church, where he was a member of the board of trustees and the Asbury Foundation. Burial will be in Druid Ridge Cemetery.

Liked By His Students

While Dr. Gardner was professor of gynecology, many young doctors came under him for training, in numerous instances father and son in succession. Those he trained remained his devoted friends. Few returning from outside the city failed to visit him.

Dr. Thomas K. Galvin, now chief of gynecology at Mercy Hospital, who trained under him, spoke last night of Dr. Gardner’s simplicity, his uncompromising honesty and directness of speech.

“He was a man who knew what he wanted and saw that he got it,” remarked Dr. Galvin, who said this was a regimen which men training under him found difficult at the time, but which they appreciated afterward.

Did Charity Work

“He was so honest he could not always be agreeable,” said Dr. Galvin, “but he could be most considerate and tender when a person was in trouble.”

Another associate who had known him for many years said he had fixed ideas as to fees, was never exorbitant, and never deviated regardless of the wealth of the patient. He also did a great deal of charity work, she said, and had “an intense love of his profession.”

Methodical in his habits, it was his custom, with his cane in his hand and pipe in his mouth, to walk from his home (first in the 1000 block of Calvert street and later at Cathedral and Mount Vernon place) to Mercy Hospital. Even after he retired a few years ago, he went once a week to the pathological laboratory at Mercy Hospital until a year ago when failing health made this impossible.

Whenever he went to the hospital the young physicians would gather around him and frequently would accompany him to his home.

Born in Ohio

He had a large collection of pipes, smoked them on successive days, naming each after the person who had given it to him.

Born in Athens county, Ohio, the son of the Reverend and Mrs. Wilson Gardner, Dr. Gardner came to Baltimore as a young man and was graduated in medicine from the old College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1885. He began his association with the Mercy Hospital in 1885.

He was a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of the American Medical Association; was treasurer for many years of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty and its President in 1921.

His wife was the former Miss Mary A. Maslin, of Kent county. She died in February, 1947. Their fiftieth wedding anniversary would have been on December 28, 1947.

Three children survive — William M. Gardner and W. Carville Gardner, of Baltimore, and Mrs. C. Ridgely Howard, of Sudbrook Park, Baltimore county — a sister with whom he made his home after the death of his wife, and four grandchildren.

Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD. Drawer 105.