Bethian Gardner, co-founder of the largest African-American-owned hair care manufacturing company in the United States and the first female co-owner of the Chicago Bulls, died on December 19th. She was 93 years old.
Mrs. Gardner died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. She and her husband, Edward G. Gardner, who died in March, founded Soft Sheen in the basement of their home near 95th Avenue and State Street in 1964 to create better hair care products for African Americans.
At its peak, the company employed nearly 900 people, most working out of its eight-acre campus at 87th Street and Dobson Avenue. The company began when Mrs. Gardner’s husband worked as an assistant principal in Chicago Public Schools. To make extra cash, he sold his beauty supplies company’s hair products to local salons.
He decided to mix up some hair care products at home and started selling them instead. He quit his teaching job because his side hustle became more lucrative.In the company’s early years, Mrs. Gardner did the bookkeeping, and the couple’s four children helped bottle the product and screw on bottle caps. Each worked for the company throughout high school, college, and beyond.
“For my mother, it’s always been the way we do things, and she really appreciates the aesthetics of life, and it shows in the buildings, the materials, the products, the packaging. It’s all about how we can do things. It was part of her desire to be the best she could be,” said her daughter Terri Gardner. In many ways, the company’s culture primarily reflects her values and principles of excellence. She expected a lot, and that helped everyone raise the bar. ”
The policies and procedures established by Mrs. Gardner enabled the company to experience significant growth in 1978 with the introduction of Care Free Curl, invented by Mrs. Gardner’s son, Gary Gardner. The Gardners sold the brand, now known as Softsheen Carson, to cosmetics giant L’Oréal in 1998. Mrs. Gardner and her husband bought stock in the Chicago Bulls around the time Michael Jordan joined the team in the mid-1980s.
“My parents were invited to be investors in the Bulls the year before or the same year Jordan came,” Terry said. “No other black woman has ever been an shareholder in an NBA team.”The couple attended every Bulls home game and received rings with their names on them when the team won the world championship. “My father was a Chicago Bulls executive at one point, and Michael Jordan called my mother ‘Mrs. Jordan.’ G.,” Terry said, noting that after the couple sold their business, they also sold their stake in the team.
Mrs. Gardner was also a great supporter of the arts, and in 1987 she and her husband purchased the closed Avalon Theater, renovated it, and built it after the original Regal in Bronzeville, a mecca to rival Harlem’s Apollo Theater. We named it New Regal. Its heyday.
Mrs. Gardner managed the day-to-day operations. Major artists such as Gladys Knight, Bernie Mac, and Tyler Perry have graced the South Side Theater stage. More importantly, at least for Mrs. Gardner, her new legal theater was producing children’s shows for her CPS students who rode the bus throughout the 1990s.
She was also a founding member of the Chicago Sinfonietta, an orchestra featuring minority and women musicians.
Mrs. Gardner was also famous for her hats.”Her costume wasn’t complete without a hat to match,” Terry said. She had a lot of authentic West African clothing. She had her own style, which was very elegant and grand, and her own way of life. When we met, She left an impression on her.”
Mrs. Gardner was born June 26, 1930 in Chicago to Yula Gueno, a school nurse, and Joseph Gueno, a house painter. The couple moved north from New Orleans to build a new life. She was a graduate of DuSable High School and attended Wilson Junior College in Chicago, now Kennedy-King University, and Roosevelt University.
Before devoting her career to the Softsheen, Mrs. Gardner briefly worked for Spiegel, a major catalog company in Chicago. She also worked at the Chicago Public Library for several years.She took pride in bringing jobs to the South Side’s black community. And on a personal level, Terry said, she helped many people pay for college or buy their first home.
Her husband was also a philanthropist, donating tens of thousands of dollars to efforts to end gun violence. To that end, he helped found the nonprofit organization Black on Black Love.In addition to Terry Gardner and Gary Gardner, Mrs. Gardner is also survived by her sons, Guy Gardner and Tracy Gardner, and seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild. The service will be private.
