Jennifer Butler Gardner COLUMBIA - After a protracted battle with breast cancer, Jennifer Butler Gardner, 75 years old, of Columbia, SC, died on December 12, 2016 in the home of her second daughter, Jocelyn Shea Pellegrin. Born Barrie Jennifer Butler on the beautiful island of Maui, Hawaii in a town called Makawao, she was the third and last child of her parents, Mr. Bernard Jefferson Butler and Ms. Mariana Roeding Butler, preceded in birth by Thorne Jefferson Butler and Peter Butler respectively, both deceased. Her father, an Engineer by training, ran The Dole Cannery Interests in Hawaii and her elegant and beautiful mother was a home maker with many interests in art, music and literature. She was born on August 18, 1941 and her family remained in Hawaii for the duration of World War II. In 1949, at the age of eight, she moved with her Mother to Lafayette, California, the region where her mother's family had settled as pioneers during the great migration west. Here she learned the familial passion for ranch life- a respect for the wild and love for the out-of-doors this was the crucible for a lifelong insistence on individual responsibility and independence. During and after her parents' divorce, she was sent to Scared Heart boarding school in Atherton California where she challenged conventions, much to the consternation of the nuns, insisting on wearing pants to dinner, when a dress and gloves were required; other young ladies followed suite. In 1963 she Graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, earning a Bachelor's of Arts in Latin American studies. Her first job was as an English Language Instructor in Bogota, Columbia, followed by a stint in Cartagena where she formed a life altering friendship Eleanor "Elly" Gardner Kluge. Her time in Columbia, South America was the great adventure of her life, burnishing a lifelong connection to Latin culture, which she would later nurture in her unique partnership with the Domingues family in Columbia SC. She returned to the bay area and worked as a "Girl Friday" filing clerk for investment firm Dodge and Cox. Her graduate studies in linguistics took her to Georgetown University in Washington, DC where she earned an M.S. in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics in 1969 and where her friend Elly Gardner Kluge joined her as a graduate student. Elly invited her to a Gardner Thanksgiving in Caldwell New Jersey where an undetected romance with Elly's brother, Leonard "Bob" R. Gardner II, formed. "Jennifer and Bob" were married, in Washington DC, on December 23, 1971 just before Christmas. Jennifer wore a dark velvet green gown, and the morning of her wedding ran to the library to drop her overdue books. "Jennifer and Bob" settled into university life at USC, forming close friendships with likeminded and diverse individuals. Her husband predeceased her in July 2011, and she is survived by children, Mariana Roeding Gardner Livingston, Leonard "Bucky" R. Gardner the III and Jocelyn Shea Pellegrin and grandchildren, Connor Ross Livingston, Kyle Logan Livingston and Jenna Morgan Livingston. Jennifer had many interests over the years that waxed and waned in significance, though her love of gardening never dwindled. She and her Mother bought a farm in Calhoun county which served as a surrogate for the California ranch. Around this time she purchased her first investment property. She was an avid runner and tennis player, volunteering when her children were young with the Junior Tennis League. She later learned Japanese and managed to also squeeze in a career as a teacher at USC's EPI (English Program for Internationals) where she defied the students expectations of the "Conventional American" and won them over with her unique teaching style and humorous manner. Her later years were colored by her civic activism and joy in bestowing her unsolicited advice on all, regarding recycling, finances and any other matter that came under her scrutiny. Her true north was that one should be an individual. She is deeply missed by her children and will be remembered unconventionally, as was her request. No service is planned though, her family will have a private gathering. Her last wish was fulfilled to donate her body, as her husband did, to Gift of Body, USC Medical School.