Saint Nancy and The Professor A Six Decade Commitment to Love and Joy

Saint Nancy and The Professor: A Six Decade Commitment to Love and Joy is a biographical and autobiographical memoir written by John D. Stewart Jr. and William A. Gardner, published in 2026, initiated by the passing of Nancy on 26 March 2024.
The book honors the life of Nancy Susan Gardner (referred to as "St. Nancy") and chronicles an almost six-decade marriage to William "Bill" A. Gardner (a Research Professor at UC Davis, known as "The Professor").
Some of the highlight themes are:
•A Love Story Against Adversity: The core narrative details a deep, unconditional devotion and "intricate and joyous collaboration" between Nancy and Bill. Despite facing life-threatening genetic illnesses and a frustratingly uncompassionate medical system that left Nancy bedridden for the final seven years of her life, the couple remained vibrantly happy and resilient.
•The "Saint" and "The Professor": The titles reflect their roles during Nancy's long health battle. Nancy earned the moniker "St. Nancy" for her unyielding grace, patience, and ebullient joy—never complaining despite her immense suffering. Bill became "The Professor" who applied his fierce academic and analytical focus to relentlessly research ways to advocate for his wife's health.
•A Full Life of Pursuits: The book highlights Nancy's vibrant passions, including her mastery of gourmet French and Italian cuisine, her love of extensive international travel, fabric weaving, and her insatiable appetite for reading. It also delves into Bill's highly accomplished academic life in applied mathematics, his personal battles overcoming Tourette Syndrome and dyslexia, and his love for restoration projects—such as reviving their beautiful mountain residence, Vista Norte, in Napa, California.
•Philanthropy and Community: Because health challenges prevented them from having children, the couple redirected their energy and wealth toward helping young adults, creating permanent scholarships at UC Davis, and generously funding individuals in need.
Co-authored by their close friend and physical therapist, John Stewart, the memoir serves as an inspiring blueprint for other couples navigating unexpected life calamities, illustrating how unconditional love and an enduring inner spirit can triumph over profound physical suffering.

John has been in the fitness industry for over 20 years and is a Master Practitioner of Fitness Therapy and a specialist in Corrective Exercise, Performance Enhancement, Weight Loss, Senior Fitness, Youth Exercise, Women's Fitness, and Personal Training. His education is through the National Academy of Sports Medicine as well as the International Sports Science Association.

The health and fitness world has changed immensely over recent years, and a much larger population is striving to stay active while feeling better and living longer, with less pain and/or limitation. In response to this demand for service, John's business model has changed, and he has updated his services to add a more modern online training concept.

Training someone to first move properly is the foundation of any sustainable fitness program. Proper movement empowers ordinary people to stay active longer. Tight muscles, stiff joints and poor functional strength lead to impaired movement and damaging compensation. Movement impairment and compensation lead to pain, soreness, exercise dread—and eventually injury. This is especially true for adults and seniors who often shoulder a lifetime of accumulated traumas, strains, and chronic pain leading to unhealthy avoidance of activity and resultant weight gain. With proper physical training and therapy provided by a qualified practitioner like John, this gives his platform the ability to precisely assess human movement and confidently create customized performance programs that can help clients move better, stay active longer, and lose weight.

John has been through numerous injuries, illnesses, and recovery of his own. From torn pec muscles that required extensive surgery, to sprained spine injuries during a youthful career in powerlifting, to recovering from being struck by a car while road cycling, to COVID-19 and almost dying. John was told he would not survive multiple times, but courage and perseverance have always been driving factors. Recently, John has completed 10 SOLO marathons and an Ironman 70.3 in Santa Cruz, CA. He currently trains daily for longevity and strength and is always active and looking for better ways to serve his clients and community through healthy living and nutrition.
William A. Gardner (born Allen William McLean, November 4, 1942) is an American electrical engineer and professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis, known for his foundational contributions to the statistical theory of cyclostationarity and time-series analysis.Gardner has authored four books on statistical signal processing theory. His 1987 book Statistical Spectral Analysis: A Nonprobabilistic Theory has been cited over 1,200 times in peer-reviewed journals.His research papers and books have been cited in over seventeen thousand peer-reviewed journal articles.[1]

He is also an entrepreneur and founder of the R&D firm Statistical Signal Processing, Inc. (SSPI), which he led as president, CEO, and chief scientist for 25 years (1986–2011) before its IP was acquired by Lockheed Martin.[2]

According to a peer-reviewed tutorial published in Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing (Antoni, 2009), Gardner "first established many of the theoretical foundations [of cyclostationarity], laid down the currently used terminology, and also foresaw many applications."