Frank Gardino and Linda Shields were married in Reno, Nevada on September 16, 1972, and have two sons, Louie and Duke Gardino.

Frank lived in Denver until he entered the Army, and has been involved in the printing industry since 1965. He enjoys printing both as a job and as a hobby . While in the military he was a printer in the Psychological Operations division, and his overseas duties included two tours each of Viet Nam and Okinawa.

While stationed at Oakland Army Base, California he met and married Linda after a five month courtship. They drove from Oakland to Reno, Nevada, where their friends Rochelle (Rocky) and Annie served as witnesses.

Frank is involved with our church, Tanwax Country Chapel, and his interests include football (Denver Bronchos, of course!), wrestling and our German Shepherd, Jericho.

LINDA was born in Bandon, Oregon, the second child of five, and has an older sister and two younger brothers. A younger brother passed away at the age of six months of age, after complications. She lived in Rohnerville, California (now part of Fortuna) until she was 13 years old, when her father passed away from cancer. She then went to live with her grandparents in Washington State, and soon the rest of the family relocated there also.

Linda entered the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in 1971 where she had Basic Training at Ft. McClellan, Alabama and Advanced Training in Communications at Ft. Gordon, Georgia. She was then stationed at Oakland Army Base, California where she was assigned to the Base Telephone Office. It was during this time that she met and married Frank.

Linda became involved in printing in 1979, and helped make Frank's dream of owning a print shop a reality. Together they own and operate Graphics by Gardino, which was established in April 1984.

Linda enjoys working at home with computers doing desktop publishing and learning about webpages, as well as working part-time at CenterForce in the Technology Bridge Lab. She also enjoys the time she spends with her constant companion, Jericho, and is involved with their church. She loves spending time with friends and watching big time wrestling.

LOUIE was born three months prematurely in Oakland, California on January 24, 1974 weighing only 2 lbs. 4 oz. His twin sister, Kristina Jean (2 lbs. 2 oz.), became our little angel on February 8, 1974, passing away when she was only fifteen days old.

Louie graduated from high school in 1992 and spent four years active duty in the Air Force as a missile technician. He then enlisted in the Air Force Guard with satellite communications, where he trains for one weekend per month plus two weeks during the summer. Louie is employed by General Electric in their computer section, and he enjoys electronics, computers and rock climbing. On August 21, 1999 he and Jennie announced their engagement, and they're planning a May 2000 wedding.

DUKE was born in Denver, Colorado a month prematurely on April 19, 1976 weighing 5 lbs. 6 oz., and graduated from high school in 1994. He entered the Army after graduation and completed Basic Training and Advanced Training at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, where he was then stationed with an Artillery unit. He was transferred to Giessen, Germany on January 18, 1999 where he will be stationed for the next three years.

Duke enjoys music, guitars, music, friends, music, stock car races and music. (Did we mention "music"?!) He is single.

Frank returned in time to celebrate our first Christmas together, and then he received an honorable discharge in March 1973. He gained employment at Crown Zellerbach as a printing press operator.

Linda continued to stay in the Army until September of 1973 when we received the news that we would soon be starting a family. She received an honorable discharge from the Army, but was immediately employed at the Army Base in the same position as a civilian employee. We continued living in Oakland until our twins, Louie and Kristina, were born (and when Kristina passed away), and then we moved to a larger home in San Leandro, California.

Louie was in the hospital for two months, and came home weighing a whooping 4 lbs. 15 oz. -- A long ways from 2 lbs. 4 oz.! When he was five months old we took a 10-state trip visiting California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. It was a miserable 117 degrees in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we were asked to leave a casino as we had an underaged child.

Late in 1974 Frank transferred to the Crown Zellerbach plant in Portland, Oregon, and we lived over the state line in Hazel Dell, Washington (near Vancouver, WA, USA). This enabled us to travel back and forth between our home and "Grandma's" in Mineral, Washington on a regular basis.

Linda began having health problems due to the area's air quality and Frank experienced a scary and potentially deadly firey accident at work, so it was decided that after only a few months we would move back to San Leandro. Frank was promised his old job back, so we rented a duplex and moved in only to be told that Crown Zellerbach was laying people off.

Unemployment held us over for awhile, and it was during this time that Louie celebrated his first birthday. We were barely making ends meet when a friend brought groceries and alerted the Salvation Army that we needed help. We realized that we needed to do something to better our situation, so our next move was to Denver, Colorado where Frank immediately found a job as a printer with Titan Labels.

It was while in Denver that Duke was born in 1976 after a complicated pregnancy (Linda was hospitalized three times and also had surgery prior to his being born), and when he was only two weeks old we again moved to Washington State. We stayed with Linda's mom for two weeks when Frank obtained a job with Crown Zellerbach, so it was back to the Bay Area to Hayward, California again. After about one year Linda returned to work at the Oakland Army Base's telephone office.

During the summer of 1978 we had just purchased a new van when we visited Washington State and bought a five acre piece of property in Winlock. We had a lot of fun spending money and visiting family, but when we returned from vacation we were informed that Crown Zellerbach had unexpectedly gone out on strike. (The San Leandro plant had voted against a stirke, but the majority ruled so they had to honor the strike approval of the others.)

After ten months we were struggling to make ends meet, so we packed up and moved to Washington State in April 1979. We lived with Linda's mom where we slept in our little 13-foot camp trailer.

Since we were both veterans and could get paid for furthering our education, we signed up for an "Offset Duplicator/Printing" course at a vocational school. Frank attended the "press room" section of the course for six months until he found a printing job with the Pierce County Hearld, a weekly newspaper in Puyallup.

Linda concentrated on the "typesetting" and "camera" sections of the course, and got a job for a typesetting company typing names and numbers for telephone directories. She was the only person working evenings in a multi-story building in downtown Tacoma which was quite frightening, so at Frank's request she quit after only a few weeks. She then worked part-time at All Night Printery, a print shop in Federal Way, which gave her "hands-on" training that would prove to be useful in the future.

After attending the course for a year Linda was employed by the Suburban Times, a weekly newspaper in Lakewood (near Tacoma), where she was employed for six months. They also typeset and printed the military newspapers for McChord Air Force Base and for Ft. Lewis Army Base. Linda was then transferred to another weekly newspaper in Olympia owned by the same newspaper chain, however feeling as if she had been "horse traded" she quit after one week.

Linda was hired as Production Manager at the Eatonville Dispatch, another weekly newspaper, where she was employed for the next four years. -- It was interesting that Linda worked at the Dispatch and Frank worked at the Pierce County Herald, where the Dispatch was printed!

After six months with the Pierce County Herald Frank got a job working for the State of Washington with the Department of Employment Security in their print shop. After two years he promoted up to the Department of Transportation's print shop where he continues to be currently employed.

Louie and Duke attended Sunday School and church with their grandmother at the local Assembly of God church, and they were both babtized (along with a few other believers) by the Pastor in a swimming pool one hot summer afternoon.

During the summer of 1983 we rented a small mobile home in Eatonville, and several months later were able to purchase a mobile home of our own where we lived in a mobile home park for several years.

Linda also worked for one year at a print shop in Tacoma prior to being employed by the State of Washington for the Department of Licensing in their microfilming section.

It was in April 1984 that Frank and Linda obtained a business license for Graphics by Gardino, a print shop operated on evenings and weekends out of our home. We began producing mailers for a local grocery store announcing weekly specials utilizing "rub art" lettering. This was a tedious task that was completed on our breakfast nook! We purchased our first printing press, and the mailer was discontinued when the store changed to a Shop Rite who had their own advertising department.

Linda promoted to the Parole Board (now the "Indeterminate Sentencing Review Board") where she worked for four years as a Docket Clerk preparing inmate files for review and/or parole meetings between inmates and Parole Board members.

In the summer of 1985 we purchased some land outside of Eatonville, where we moved our mobile home and where we have lived since that time.

While at the Parole Board Linda was given an offer that was too good to refuse by the new owner of the Dispatch, so she quit her state job and returned to the line of work that she'd learned to love. Within a couple weeks she realized that it had been a mistake, so after three long and trying months she returned to the Parole Board on a temporiary basis.

Obtaining a permanent position with the State of Washington's Department of Licensing in their Business License Services division, Linda worked her way up to "Lead Renewal Person" in charge of renewable licenses. After four years she promoted within the department to the position that she had had her eye on for years...."Phototypesetter" for the Forms and Records section.

In December of 1991 Linda suffered a mini-stroke which left her with no short-term memory as well as other minor complications. After getting out of bed to check on Louie who wasn't feeling well, Linda felt "ill" and collapsed onto the floor. Frank jumped out of bed and getting no response vigeriously shook her, making her eyes pop wide open. Louie called 9-1-1 as Duke went out to the road to direct the aid vehicles to our house.

Rushed by ambulance to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning, the doctor could find nothing wrong and released her to return home. Although unable to speak and functioning at a much slower pace than normal, tests taken over the next several days indicated nothing out of the ordinary.

Due to tests Linda missed a few days of work, and she read and re-read through her address book trying to remember who each person was and how she knew them. She lost the ability to play her guitar and trumpet, and also the mathamatical portion of her memory. Reading a ruler was quite a chore, and adding the simplest numbers together was an impossibility.

Struggling back took time, and outwardly she appeared to have made a full recovery although she knew that that wasn't the case. Several other problems appeared to which no cause was found, and it wasn't until almost two years later when an ear, nose and throat specialist was checking for throat problems with a scope and asked, "How bad was your stroke?" Linda finally knew that it wasn't "just in her head"!!!

The carotid artery in her neck had seized up cutting off the blood supply to her brain. Frank's vigerous shaking had unblocked the passage making the blood rush to her brain, thus popping her eyes wide open. His actions had saved her from further brain damage, and possibly even death.

There was damage showing in Linda's throat, so the doctor was shocked to learn that no therapy was given and that no problems had been found. She said that without any help, Linda's best therapy had been to keep working and to read her address book. These actions were credited with keeping her brain active and giving it the needed therapy and stimulation it needed to continue functioning properly.

Today Linda continues to have problems concentrating, comprehending new information, with math and music, as well as reading out loud. She is thankful for the quick actions of our family during the emergency.

Within a couple years phototypesetting was begainning to be threatened by the introduction of "desktop publishing", so Linda jumped at the chance to learn more about Macintosh computers. She quickly learned that this was the way of the future, and we made our first purchase of a Mac in 1992. This totally changed the outlook for Graphics by Gardino which quickly leaped into the modern age of computers.

We could now make "professional" clean looking originals to be printed, and we were on our way to a successful business venture. We purchased our second printing press, and our business rapidly expanded.

We began attending Tanwax Country Chapel on a regular basis, and on July 26, 1992 Linda was baptisted in Clear Lake by Pastor Dan Tanner with the assistance of Harry Anderson. Linda is terrified of water as she has had two near-drowning experiences, so this was a very big step of faith for her. -- Pastor Dan and Harry were unable to completely submerge her as she stood up and ran out of the water, but God knows that she meant well!

December 1993 saw another promotion for Linda to "Forms and Records Analyst 2" for the Washington State Department of Agriculture. She was responsible for all the printing for the whole department for almost five years where she designed and typeset forms, brochures, posters, and other printed material. She worked closely with the State Printers, State Copy Centers as well as private printing companies, coordinating printing orders between department employees and vendors.

Modern technology was catching up with the printing trade and Frank was beginning to wonder about his future, and then the Department of Transportation introduced him to Xerox's "Docutech".....a $450,000 copier! You could put original documents into the feeder tray at one end, and it would come out a finished, bound book on the other end in only a minute or two. What an invention it was, and it provided a way for him to continue in the trade but with the latest technology!!!

Linda awoke one morning in October 1998 with the right side of her face numb, and unable to blink her right eye. Assuming that she had suffered another mini-stroke we hesitated about going to the doctor. Co-workers persuaded her to be checked, and to our surprise the doctor diagnosed it instead as "Bell's Palsey". There were no signs of an ear infection or symptoms of a cold, so upon further examination the doctor credited the affliction to work related stress.

At the same time Graphics by Gardino was outgrowing it's "part-time" status, so we made the decision that Linda would give up her state employment to run our business full time. Her last day with the State was October 15, 1998.

The next day we brought home our new puppy, Jericho of Sajjadi Farms ("Jericho" for short), and she has been great therapy as Linda's palsey has completely disappeared. The two of us have been constant companions ever since, and Jericho has brought a lot of joy to our lives.

We enjoy donating our talents towards the good of our church, Christian Women's Clubs, as well as other non-profit and/or community action groups, and it has returned to us more than ten-fold. Praise God for His wonderful blessings!

On August 21, 1999 (Linda's birthday) Louie announced his engagement to Jennie, making this the best birthday present ever! They are planning a May 2000 wedding.

That brings you up-to-date on our family! We hope you enjoy visiting the rest of our webiste, and please remember to sign our guestbook before you leave.

May God bless you richly, and in whatever you say or do.....always GIVE GOD THE GLORY!

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