Editing Martin Gardner (section)

===Youth and education===
Martin Gardner was born into a prosperous family in [[Tulsa, Oklahoma]], to James Henry Gardner, a [[petroleum geologist]],<ref>James Gardner later became the 8th President of the [[American Association of Petroleum Geologists]].</ref> and his wife, Willie Wilkerson Spiers, a [[Montessori education|Montessori-trained]] teacher.  His mother taught Martin to read before he started school, reading him ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz|The Wizard of Oz]]'', and this began a lifelong interest in the [[Oz books]] of [[L.&nbsp;Frank Baum]].<ref name=fame/><ref name=England_2014/>  His fascination with mathematics started in his boyhood when his father gave him a copy of [[Sam Loyd]]'s ''Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles, Tricks and Conundrums''.<ref>Suzuki (1996) at 17:20</ref><ref>MacTutor</ref>

[[File:Martin Gardner HS Yearbook.jpeg|thumb|Gardner as a high school senior, 1932]]
He attended the [[University of Chicago]] where he studied history, literature and sciences under their intellectually-stimulating Great Books curriculum and earned his bachelor's degree in [[philosophy]] in 1936.<ref name=telegraph/> Early jobs included reporter on the ''[[Tulsa Tribune]]'', writer at the University of Chicago Office of Press Relations, and case worker in [[Black Belt (region of Chicago)|Chicago's Black Belt]] for the city's Relief Administration. During [[World War II]], he served for four years in the U.S. Navy as a [[Yeoman (US Navy)|yeoman]] on board the destroyer escort [[USS Pope (DE-134)|USS ''Pope'']] in the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]]. His ship was still in the Atlantic when the war came to an end with the [[surrender of Japan]] in August 1945.

After the war, Gardner returned to the University of Chicago.<ref name=Shermer_1997>Shermer (1997)</ref> He attended graduate school for a year there, but he did not earn an advanced degree.<ref name=allyn_jackson/>