Pauline Auger Gardner

January 11, 1927 - January 10, 2025

“The problem with relaxing,” Polly Gardner was known to say, “is you don’t get as much done.”

That high-energy credo would elicit chuckles from her family and friends, given it was a spot-on

description of the human dynamo that was Polly. However, it was also a reflection of reality for a

mother of seven who was also a community volunteer extraordinaire: There was not much time

to put her feet up.

Polly, who reveled in family, friendships, community service, lifelong learning, tennis, books,

bridge, and jigsaw puzzles, died on Jan.10, 2025, in her home in Brookhaven at Lexington. She

was 97, one day shy of her 98th birthday. A longtime former resident of Cambridge, Wellesley,

and New Bedford, MA, she also previously had part-time homes in West Falmouth, MA, and

West Townshend, VT.

Whether in support of the large family she had with her beloved late husband, Dick, or her

extensive volunteer commitments, Polly never shied from a challenge. Throughout her long and

fortunate life, she maintained an optimist’s conviction that if it could be thought it could be done,

especially when people put their heads together.

And she loved it when there were a lot of heads together. As a newlywed who treasured

children but did not yet have any, she led a local Girl Scout troop. When some of her own kids

were attending foreign exchange programs, she embraced the reciprocal duty of hosting high

school students from abroad in the big house on Livermore Road—and a stream of other

students from local universities. Literally or metaphorically, the doors were never locked, and all

were welcome.

To call Polly “outgoing” was not to cover the half of it. There were no strangers in Polly’s eyes,

whether in the halls of Brookhaven, where she lived for almost 20 years, or at the next table in a

restaurant, despite the occasional cringes from her family members. Her prodigious social

talents helped weave together many a community, large or small, and kept far-flung family

members feeling close, despite geographic distances.

Born Pauline Auger in New Bedford in 1927, Polly was the second child for her parents, Roland

and Loretta (Tremblay) Auger. Her older brother, Paul, had died as a toddler before Polly came

along, and for the first seven years of her life she was their only child, until the birth of her sister

Nancy. Their father, a city employee, landlord, and local tennis champion, coached Polly in the

sport she would play into her 80s. Before the end of high school, Polly, too, was crowned a city

tennis champion in New Bedford. That title led to invitations to tournaments all over New

England, frequently covered by the local newspapers.

Polly made the papers again when, as her graduation from Wellesley College approached, she

outran a crowded field to be named a co-winner of the annual college Hoop Race in May 1948.

Tradition had it that the first to cross the campus finish line while keeping a wooden hoop rolling

would also be the first in the graduating class to marry. Polly bested her peers in that regard as

well: Her engagement to Richard L. Gardner of Wellesley, then a student at Harvard Business

School, was announced just two days later in The Boston Globe. She and Dick were married for

almost 60 years, until his death in 2008. In 2023, Polly was proud to be one of just two

classmates to attend the 75th reunion of her Wellesley College Class of 1948.

Polly’s children were the hectic center of her existence. How did she rear, feed, nurse,

chauffeur, etc. seven kids? (Without losing her mind, was the unsaid part of the question.) “To

tell the truth, I had lots of help,” she wrote not long ago. Some paid helpers lasted longer than

others, but among the valued stalwarts over the decades were Victoria, Mrs. Hoyte, and Ada, in

addition to all of the caregivers who helped Dick after his Parkinson’s had advanced and the

aides who assisted Polly herself in her last months.

During the social turmoil and youthful experimentations of the 1960s and ‘70s, Polly’s kids

managed to avoid the worst ramifications, due in no small part to her diligent oversight. Polly’s

own mother used to marvel at her grandchildren’s well-being with only a slightly tongue-in-cheek

quip: “And none in jail!”

Beginning in the mid-1960s, an old farm in Vermont became a nearly weekly family getaway, for

skiing in the winter and tennis in the summer. The annual tennis tournament there drew young

and old onto the backyard clay court, with many a competitor rueing their underestimation of

Polly’s drop shot.

Later, Polly and Dick took ownership of Dick’s parents’ longtime summer home on Cape Cod,

extending the family’s fond memories to days spent on Black Beach or admiring the view of

Sippewissett Marsh.

Wellesley was Polly’s home for more than 30 years, longer than anywhere else, and her

involvement in that community ran deep. In her early years there, Polly, a college botany major,

learned that the local garden club had a full complement of members, so she simply started

another, the Wellesley Garden Study Group, which is still in existence today.

The hours Polly volunteered for civic and community organizations were seemingly endless,

with beneficiaries including the Wellesley Public Schools, Town Meeting, and the Wellesley

Historical Society. Serving as town cookie chairman, Polly kept watch over 25,000 boxes of Girl

Scout cookies that passed through the Gardner house. Polly also helped put together the gift of

land to create Wellesley’s Centennial Park, marking the town’s 100th anniversary in 1981, and

even ran (unsuccessfully) for selectman. Twice in the mid-1980s, town organizations presented

service awards jointly to Polly and Dick, who had himself been a member of Town Meeting, a

selectman, and a school committee member, among other roles.

Not long ago, though, Polly said that the volunteer work of which she was most proud was that

she did on behalf of METCO. Beginning in the 1960s, the Metropolitan Council for Educational

Opportunity has offered students from Boston the opportunity to attend public schools in

suburban districts, including in Wellesley, and has provided suburban students with a more

diverse learning environment. In the early days of the effort, Polly and others realized the

Boston students who wanted to play sports or do other extracurriculars in Wellesley did not

have transportation home in the evening. Along with other parents, Polly provided rides for

students back into the city—an admittedly daring endeavor in the midst of the racial vitriol that

surrounded school desegregation in Boston.

When she and Dick moved to Cambridge in the 1980s, Polly maintained many of her

connections in Wellesley and, naturally, simply added involvement in new organizations. When

the couple moved to Brookhaven, Polly once more was an all-in leader, participant, and booster

of activities from book club to bridge, gardening, French table, current events discussions, and,

more recently, the memoir-writing group. Her curiosity and enthusiasm seemed to know no

bounds; Polly was always on top of the latest news or trend, whether it was the advent of

American Girl dolls or a new mystery book series. Every jigsaw puzzle set out in her

Brookhaven hallway drew her competitive scrutiny, and any companion hoping to avoid

admonishment was wise to try to fit a piece into its proper position.

For decades, recipients would look forward to the arrival of Polly’s monthly email newsletter for

family and friends, full of updates about her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids; a monthly list

of birthdays; and, by recent popular demand, a “Memory Lane” feature, relating anecdotes from

her life. Polly, who took her self-imposed deadlines seriously, was plugging away until the end:

The last edition was dated Jan. 1.

Polly was predeceased by her parents, brother, son-in-law Jay Esler, brother-in-law Richard

McCabe, and by Dick, her husband of 59 years. She is survived by her seven children:

Elizabeth Johnson (Douglas) of Springfield, MA; Nancy (Richard Shyduroff) of Rockport, ME;

William (Sari Rotter) of Brookline, MA; James (Lynn Freestone) of Salt Lake City, UT; Dorothy

Freeman (T.J.) of Mexico; Virginia (Patrick Didier) of France; and Louis (Millicent Lawton) of

Newton, MA. Fifteen grandchildren also survive her, as do nine great-grandchildren, her sister Nancy, Nancy’s family, and many friends.

Donations in Polly’s memory may be made to Friends of Wellesley METCO, Inc., an

independent charitable organization, friendsofwellesleymetco.org. Polly asks that all plant a

tree. A Celebration of Life will be held at Wellesley College on May 17, 2025.