Apparently eager to join the fraternity, Brother Gardner was 21 years of age when he made application and was initiated on March 3, 1908 and raised in May of 1908. In 1914 he was Master of Unity Lodge #4 and on the occasion of his mastership in the words of Past Grand Master Augustus John Wolff, it was to be a banner year for Unity #4. The succeeding years placed no limitations or bounds on his Masonic enthusiasum and from 1926 to 1928 he was District Deputy Grand Master of District #5 (today known as the Lunenburg-Queens District); he was Deputy Grand Master in 1933 and the Grand Master of Masons in Nova Scotia in 1935.

Among the several Masonic achievements to his credit he holds the 50 year jewel along with the 70 year bar awarded in 1978. He holds the Erasmus James Philipps Bronze Medallion for distinguished service. He is a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the Provincial Chapter of the Royal Order of Scotland. He is a member of Philae Temple of the Mystic Shrine. In 1957 in recognition of his outstanding service to freemasonry in general and the Scottish Rite in particular, he was coronetted as an honourary member, that is, the 33rd degree of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite in Canada. In addition to his mother lodge Unity #4, he also holds membership in Prince of Wales Lodge #29 in Milton, NS. He has life memberships in Loop Lodge, Mobile, Alabama and Ormond Beach Lodge in Florida.

Aside from the masonic career of M. M. Gardner, he has also taken an active and distinguished part in business, church and community life through the years. He taught school for 2 years and was a bank clerk in Halifax. Later returning to Lunenburg County he rose to position of manager of a large fish processing firm from which position he retired after 33 years with the company. In community endevours he has served as Town Councillor, Chairman of the school commission for 10 years, Chairman of the first Victory Bond campaign in 1941; first manager of NS Fish Exhibition, as well as being president of several well known organizations such as Board of Trade, Red Cross Society, Kiwanis Club and affiliated with Kings College in Windsor and the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax. He has also taken an active interest in the church life of his community and in this regard has written a most interesting account of nearly 200 years of the History of St. John’s Anglican Church in Lunenburg.

This excerpt taken from a document written in October 1971 by the Historian of the day, amended to 1978.