Dr. Henrietta Floride Moore Gardner was born in Milledgeville on November 12, 1916. She attended Peabody School for K-12 and then Georgia State College for Women (G.S.C.W.) for her bachelor's degree in Home Economics and Elementary Education in 1936. From 1936-1943, Dr. Gardner taught at public schools across Georgia as a home economics teacher, spending the first year after earning her B.S. as a student dietitian at Sibley Hospital in Washington, D.C. and then as a dietitian for Georgia College & State University. She attended the University of Georgia during the summer semesters of 1939-1940 before beginning her master's degree in Home Economics Education and Nutrition Education at the University of Tennessee. In 1948, she attended New York University for her Ph.D. in Administration and Supervision, earning her doctorate in 1951. In between earning her master's and doctorate degrees, she taught as an Associate Professor of Nutrition at the University of Alabama for one semester before teaching at the University of Georgia as Associate Professor of Home Economics Education from 1945-1949. In 1951, she was named the Head of the Home Economics Department at the University of Georgia. In 1958, she accepted a position as the Head of the Department of Home and Family Life at Columbia University Teachers College in New York, holding that position until 1963.
In 1964, she returned to her hometown to teach at Georgia College & State University, her alma mater, as a Professor of Education, teaching there until 1974. Dr. Gardner was a highly awarded professor and nutritionist, who published numerous articles on the diets of Georgia children and home economics. She was named the Outstanding Home Economist in Georgia (1957), the Outstanding Home Economist at Georgia College (1969), and Professor of the Year at Georgia College (1971). Within her professional career, she advocated for the use of motion pictures in education and directed an award-winning documentary entitled "The School that Learned to Eat," which was awarded the Outstanding Documentary Film at the Edinborough Film Festival in 1949. She served as the advisor and researcher for the film. She hosted several teaching workshops in health and nutrition education as well as wrote and researched extensively on the diets of school children in Georgia, publishing reports such as "What do Georgia Children Eat?"
In her personal life, she returned from graduate school in New York to Milledgeville and married Paul Gardner in 1963. She was a member of NSDAR, specifically the Nancy Hart Chapter, and as a NSDAR member, she participated in research projects concerning the women of Baldwin County who had served in the military during WWII. She carried out correspondence with Senator Sam Nunn for the project, requesting records on Baldwin County women who had served both pre-WWII and during WWII.
Her father, Charles Leighton Moore (C.L. Moore) was owner of the Milledgeville Union-Recorder. Dr. Gardner and her mother, May Temperance Allen Moore, traveled extensively throughout throughout the world. She was also an active member of the First United Methodist Church. Dr. Gardner died on October 26, 2016 at nearly 100 years old.