Theodore Yale Gardner

Reverend Theodore Yale Gardner (1841 – 1900) was an American Presbyterian and Congregationalist minister from Cleveland, Ohio.

Ransom, of the Alpha Nu Chapter of the Beta Theta Pi at the University of Kansas, seated at John Palmer Usher's house.

[1] His brother, George W. Gardner, was a large grain dealer in Cleveland, and was elected its mayor on two occasions.

[1] He was also involved in politics with Senator Mark Hanna, chairman of the Republicans, and was one of the first business partners of John D. Rockefeller, who later founded the Standard Oil Company.

[2] Gardner graduated from Central High School in 1859, and attended Alderbert College at the Western Reserve Academy.

Carroll Cutler, 4th president of Case Western Reserve University, who frequently entertained the members at his home.

Anson Smyth, an Ohio school reformer with Senator Harvey Rice, who founded the Cleveland Public Library.

[7] The philanthropists who donated substantial funds to erect the chapel were; Cleveland's richest man, Samuel Mather, proprietor of the Pickands Mather Group, banker Louis Severance, one of the founders of Standard Oil of the Rockefellers, manufacturer Edward Williams, proprietor of the Sherwin-Williams Company, railroad magnate Amasa Stone, one of the associates of Standard Oil, and the Binghams of the W. Bingham Company.

[11][12] The fraternity house used for the chapter since 1912 is John Palmer Usher's mansion, who was the Secretary of the Interior of Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War.

[13] In 1885, Gardner became the Western Secretary of the American College and Education Society, seated at the Congregational House in Boston.

[16][17][18][19] Gardner's brother-in-law, William Nahum Gates, founded the third oldest advertising agency in the United States, and was a board trustee of the Cleveland Trust Co..[20][21][22]