Leroy W. Gardner

Leroy W. Gardner, a transplanted Minnesotan, having been born in St. Paul in 1929, served the United States as a proud employee of the Department of Defense, retiring in 1988 with thirty-two years with the National Security Agency. Mr. Gardner has been a volunteer at the National Archives, specializing in records of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the National Security Agency (NSA). He became interested in Florence Macbeth through his love of opera and his love of Minnesota. He is the author of The Minnesota Nightingale—A Lyrical Life (a biography of Macbeth) and devotes himself to the ongoing project of researching the singer's life and uncovering new details about her career.