ROY W. GARDNER

ESSEX -- Funeral service for Roy Wesley Gardner, Essex Route 2, will be held at 1 p.m. today at Nunnelee Funeral Chapel in Sikeston. The Rev. E.K. Purcell and Elder David Bowman will officiate, with burial in Mounds Park Cemetery near Lilbourn.

Gardner, 69, died Saturday, Oct. 30, 1993, at John J. Pershing VA Medical Center in Poplar Bluff.

He was born Feb. 19, 1924, at Kelleyville, Okla., son of Elijah R. and Bessie Shackleford Gardner. He first married Alberta Garland in 1941, who died in November 1949. He then married Joan Chadd in 1951, and later married Willa Neal Hatfield Aug. 17, 1979.

Gardner farmed most of his life, and had been a heavy equipment operator and deckhand for a barge line. He was a paratrooper with the U.S. Army during World War II.

Survivors include his wife; three sons, LeRoy Gardner of St. Petersburg, Fla., Ray Gardner of Matthews, Michael Gardner of Sikeston; Linda Ramsey, Betty Croney, Gloria Gardner, Lois Dirickson and Yvonne Gardner, all of Sikeston; his stepmother, Ova Gardner of Camp, Ark.; five stepsons, Mark and Jeffrey Hatfield of Nashville, Tenn., Eric Hatfield of Goshen, Ind., Kevin and William Hatfield of Ashland City, Tenn.; a stepdaughter, Susan Gaines of Dexter.

Also surviving are nine brothers, Merle and Bill Gardner of Strathmore, Calif., John Arthur of Maryland, Paul, Roland and Everett Gardner of Camp, Elijah "Buck" Gardner of Berger, Henry Gardner of Neelyville, Joe Gardner of Moark, Ark.; five sisters, Gladis Virginia of LaSalle, Ill., Joy Thomas of Corning, Ark., Sophia Pakula of Illinois, Johnnie Lenard of Doniphan, Shirley Pratt of Marshall; 31 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by a daughter and three sisters.