{"id":205826,"date":"2026-05-13T08:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=205826"},"modified":"2026-05-13T08:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:31:13","slug":"george-brett-gardner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/05\/13\/george-brett-gardner\/","title":{"rendered":"George Brett Gardner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>George Brett Gardner, 64, of Van Wert passed away peacefully Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at the Defiance CHP Hospice Center after a very brief illness of leukemia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was born February 23, 1962, the son of George Sanford &#8220;Sandy&#8221; Gardner who preceded him in death on August 30, 1988. He was married on July 28, 2002, to Marlene (Marty Lehman) Gardner.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"386\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/George-Gardner-5-2026.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-205827\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">George Brett Gardner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>He was a 1980 graduate of Van Wert High School. He worked for Van Wert National Bank for 17 years, then worked for All Green Lawn Care in Fort Wayne for over 30 years. Brett leaves behind his many rescue cats especially his buddies Harley D and Dusty. He was an avid fan of NHRA. John Force was his driver and Brett was his No. 1 fan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He is survived by his two daughters, Brittany of Lima and Kyley of Van Wert; a son, Dylan of Van Wert; a stepson, Brett Fortney of Van Wert; six grandchildren, Hannah and Jude Vetter, Michele Gardner of Van Wert, Avi Fortman of Ottawa, Gabe Fortman of Van Wert and Draven Brown of Van Wert. Also surviving are his very special aunt Pat Prichard; brothers, Keith (Mitzi) Gardner and Tony (Patty) Gardner; sisters-in-law, Debbie (Terry) Owens, Diane (Dick) Jenkins, and Brenda Smith, and brothers-in-law, Dan (Judy) Lehman and David Lee (Judi) Lehman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to his father, Brett was preceded in death by his stepmother, Nancy Gardner and brothers-in-law, Mark Ainsworth and David Lynn Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A funeral service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 16, at Cowan &amp; Son Funeral Home, Van Wert, with Pastor Bobby Brown of Liberty Baptist Church officiating. Calling hours will be held from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. Saturday, prior to the service.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Online condolences may be expressed at <a href=\"https:\/\/cowanfuneralhome.com\">cowanfuneralhome.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George Brett Gardner, 64, of Van Wert passed away peacefully Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at the Defiance CHP Hospice Center after a very brief illness of leukemia. He was born February 23, 1962, the son of George Sanford &#8220;Sandy&#8221; Gardner who preceded him in death on August 30, 1988. He was married on July 28, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituaries"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-16 04:33:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205826"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205830,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205826\/revisions\/205830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}