Donald Watt Gardner Jr.

MARBLEHEAD - Donald Watt Gardner, Jr., longtime Marbleheader and Captain of the Goodnight Moon, died in the arms of his wife in their home at Glover Square in the morning hours of Monday, January 15, 2024, after a swift skirmish with lung cancer. He spent his final days full of heart — joining in on favorite activities and milestone events, surrounded by family and friends. He was 88 years young.

Born to Donald Sr. and Kaye (Seward) Gardner, in Winchester, MA, in 1935, “Dee” grew up with a strong love of sailing and the ocean, which would provide ballast and joy in his life until the very end. The family moved to Marblehead in 1937, where Dee joined older sister Kit and their parents on many adventures on their 42-foot yawl, the Borogove II. WWII brought them to Nantucket Island in 1942, where his father served as the commanding officer of the Coast Guard base there, overseeing the “picket boats,” the converted yachts that comprised “Hooligan’s Navy,” a proud anti-submarine fleet. Soon after Nantucket endured the coldest winter ever recorded on the island, and the ocean froze all the way to the mainland, his father was deployed to the Pacific, and young Dee, Kit, and their mother moved to Forest Hills, NY, to live with his grandfather, Frederic Kimber Seward, a Titanic survivor. Dee attended PS #101 and remained in New York through the war, when they all returned to Marblehead, living on the Borogove, and rowing to school with their dog in their dinghy. Their new place on Adams Road near Greystone Beach, which would go on to house multiple generations of Gardners, became a hub of activity — with three seasons spent on the water, and the winter on the ski slopes.

Dad liked to joke that he was a “Roads Scholar,” having gone to Roads School for 5th and 6th grade before moving into junior high and high school, where he started crushing on history, art, football, and languages. His penchant for enthusiastically trying out all sorts of different jobs emerged early on. He worked as a paperboy, at FW Webb taking inventory, and at Sebastian Figurines, bending wires for Tom Sawyer’s fishing line. When he was 14, he started Gardner and Griffin Domestic Signs with a friend, designing and building wooden signs for people’s homes, including one for the Gut ‘n Feathers Club. He also built himself a dinghy, the Done Leakin’, and would spend most of his life making ongoing small improvements to it so it could keep up with kids, dogs, grands. In summer, a gig as a paid hand on a ketch named the Peregrine taught him the fish trade and deepened his navigational skills, especially through hurricane force winds, something he’d come to rely on many times when sailing with family, friends, and as a skipper in later years. In 1952, Sailing magazine put the whole family on the cover, naming the Gardners “Sailing Family of the Year.”

Scholar, athlete, artist, sailing instructor, school president, handsome devil, he made his way to Williams College, where he continued to shine. He played football and lacrosse; was elected into the Gargoyle senior honor society, as President of his class, and then of the College Council; and earned two prizes in history, including one for his honors thesis on Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester, a project inspired by a summer he’d spent lumberjacking as a choke setter in the coastal range of Mendocino County, California in 1955.

Most importantly, though, was Don’s work as part of the “Terrible 22,” a group of students critical of the exclusivity and discrimination embedded in the long established fraternity system. In his 1957 commencement speech “Criticism or Complacency,” Dad preached the importance of criticism — not complacency— as the essence of education, that “freedom to question” enabling a way to move beyond the fixed and static society and instead, through dynamic discourse, produce new ideas, improve policies, and redesign systems that better served everyone. In reflecting on his campaign for greater equity and access within the social and residential systems at the college, he was laying the groundwork for a perspective and drive that would become central to who and how he was as a community builder and connector, civic leader, historian and teacher, businessman, father of five, and grandfather of eight.

Directly after graduation from Williams in 1957, Don was recruited for a three-year stint in a joint USAF-CIA program, which took him to Texas, Michigan, and Washington, DC, and taught him Mandarin Chinese. He soon met and married his first wife, Damon “Pokey” Reed of North Conway, NH. Before starting a two-year teaching fellowship at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, he studied German at the Goethe Institute in Blaubeuren, and traveled to Europe and the Soviet Union, where he immersed himself in the troubled politics of the time.

While completing a master’s in American Studies at Yale, which included a certification in German language, he taught summer sailing in Watch Hill. In 1962, Williams College brought him back to lead the implementation of the Trustee’s decision to transition away from the fraternity system. During 8 years of service to the college, while overseeing the work he’d begun as an undergrad to welcome and then install the new housing system, he served as Assistant Dean, Dean of Student Affairs, Foreign Student Advisor, and an Instructor in History. His many roles enabled him to build lifelong friendships with people from all over the world. He and Pokey also welcomed two daughters, Rebecca and Elizabeth. In June of 1966, his thirst for adventure brought him to the top of the Headwall on Mt. Washington, where he skied across bare rock, fell, and broke his jaw, missing the family wedding that weekend.

In 1969, Dee was given a sabbatical year, bringing the family to Kobe, Japan, and returning him to the classroom at Canadian Academy, and then at Phillips Academy, where he taught American history for two years and started dabbling in local politics. The family welcomed Katy, the first of many golden retrievers and faithful companions that accompanied him over the years.

Dad’s energy was infectious, his capacity for reinvention inspiring. He was adaptable, creative, curious, artistic — a genuine, enthusiastic lifelong learner — always willing to try new things, to create possibility for himself and others, sometimes out of necessity, and sometimes to keep things interesting.

After his divorce in 1972, he moved back to the family home in Marblehead to help care for his mother, and worked for the new Boston Waterfront Development Company, managing the Lewis Wharf project at the intersection of urban affairs, politics, and development. He then teamed up with an old friend to create the first of what would be many “Survival” conferences, bringing women- and minority-owned small businesses together with large public and corporate buyers, a format that he’d revive in a collaboration with his daughter Liz some 15 years later as Gardner Associates. In 1974, he headed Jimmy Carter’s primary campaign in Massachusetts, advised John Kerry in his early political ambitions, and made his own (unsuccessful) bids for public office in Marblehead. His dedication to the Democratic Party was proud and steadfast through the rest of his life.

In 1978, he married his second wife, Martha Goodyer, and soon had three sons: Samuel, Elias, and William. More goldens, too, joined the family, in sweet succession: Tuckernuck, Amos and Gifford, Molly, and Hannah. As the sails of his career intermittently luffed, he relished time with his growing family, coaching soccer and enjoying long canoe trips and cold swims at Greystone, the beat-up Volvo station wagon happily abuzz with screaming kids.

Throughout his many career shifts, Don was most excited and fueled by the spirit of collaboration that often infused his work. He transitioned from education into human resources, developing innovative programs in management training first at GTE Sylvania, and then at Northeastern University, before refocusing his efforts on public history, organizing events and exhibits for the Marblehead Historical Society, and as Director of the Newell Goff Institute for Ingenuity and Enterprise Studies at the Rhode Island Historical Society in Providence. He remained seabound throughout, serving on the board for the Boston Port and Seamen’s Aid Society, and enjoyed a brief stint as Program Director at the Courageous Sailing Center in Charlestown, running “frostbite races on Sundays sailed by hearty souls” — the coldest job he'd ever had.

His real love was for his own Cape dory typhoon, a sweet near-19 footer that he named the Goodnight Moon, after the beloved children’s book. Sailing took him into the wilds of sea, salt air, and sky; he loved taking friends and family out for twilight harbor cruises and picnics, teaching his grandchildren the ways around a proper knot, the language of the sea. In 2001, he and Martha divorced, and Don moved to historic Glover Square, just a stone’s throw from the town landing that edged the harbor and bustled with port life. He instinctively embodied the rhythms and joy of the sport like no other, and in Marybelle "Mimi" Hollister, friend and neighbor, he found the perfect first mate. They married in 2008, the courtship and marriage a product of their close knit neighborhood at the landing, on Glover Sq and Front Street, a community that girded and enriched the remainder of his life. He and Mimi enjoyed many far flung adventures around the world, Dad with sketchbook in hand, but none of it better than their time spent with his wide-reaching family and dear friends, catching up over a meal or a harbor sail.

Up until the end, he lovingly took care of the Goodnight Moon, and she, him. He could still navigate both a gale-force or windless harbor course with the same steady hand on the tiller, finesse and grace. He Sudoku-ed, played badminton at the Gut ‘n Feathers, rode his bike around town, and cocktailed on the Goodnight Moon, showing off his considerable sailing prowess to friends — and mic-dropping jokes in between hard alees. He wove his kindness into the community in so many ways.

Don was predeceased by his sister Katharine "Kit" Seward Bryant, and parents Donald Watt Gardner, Sr. and Katharine Seward Gardner. He leaves his wife Mimi; his daughters Rebecca Gardner in Santa Fe, NM, and Elizabeth Gardner in Gill, MA; his sons Samuel Gardner in Beverly, MA, Elias Gardner in Spokane, WA, and William Gardner in Marblehead, MA; his granddaughters Isabel Kuethe, Caroline Swenson, Lillian and June Gardner; his grandsons Luke and Dominick Poulsen, Samuel Gardner and Isaac Gardner; his niece and nephew Susan and Gardner Bryant; his Seward, Wells, and Gardner cousins; his stepchildren Bo, Leslie, and Julie Adams; the entire Hollister tribe. And a glut of dear friends in Marblehead and beyond.

A memorial service will be held at the Old North Church in Marblehead on Saturday, January 27th at 2pm with reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a memorial gift to Lifebridge North Shore (www.lifebridgenorthshore.org), Sustainable Marblehead (www.sustainablemarblehead.org), or Planned Parenthood (www.plannedparenthood.org). Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at eustisandcornellfuneralhome.com for Don’s family.