Cecil Wayne Harrington

Eternal Valley, 1-15-2018

On January 15, 2018, Cecil Wayne Harrington died peacefully at home from complications due to old age. Known by his middle name, Wayne, he grew up the son of Edward and Hazel Harrington, during the Great Depression, in Tecumseh, Oklahoma. His grandparents had participated in the Land Rush of 1889. A genuinely self-made man, Wayne Harrington picked cotton when he was five years old, was a welder in the ship yards of Richmond, California by the time he was sixteen, and, once he was of age, enlisted in the U.S. Navy during the last year of World War II. A Fireman Second Class, he was honorably discharged in 1946 and then made his way to Newhall, California to work in the oil fields. Armed with barely an eighth grade education, he would rise through the ranks from Roughneck all the way to Directional Driller, i.e. the person who calculates, via advanced mathematics, exactly where to drill for oil. He traveled the world during his fifty plus year career in the oil industry, working in Iraq, Egypt, Brazil, Venezuela, on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, the Suez Canal. After retirement, he embarked on a late-life and much-loved occupation as a Crossing Guard for Wiley Canyon Elementary School.

Wayne witnessed the growing up of Newhall and the Santa Clarita Valley and would often tell stories of the people he knew, like the groundskeeper for William S. Hart, and the places that used to be, like Gene Autry's Melody Ranch. A lover of all things Western, he could remember the words to any classic Country song and the best-known lines in any cowboy movie or television show of the forties, fifties, and sixties. He golfed, fished, and bowled. He arm-chair coached the Bruins and did the seventh inning stretch for the Dodgers and picked many a $2 Exacta.

Wayne met his wife Patsy when she worked at the concession counter at the American Movie Theatre- now the American Legion Hall-in downtown Newhall in 1947. Had he lived a little longer, Wayne and Patsy would have celebrated their 70th Wedding Anniversary on April 11, 2018. Patsy survives him, along with three daughters, Linda Harrington of Watertown, Massachusetts, Pamela Kershaw of Valencia, California, and Deborah Harrington, also of Valencia. Additionally, Wayne leaves behind three grandchildren, six great grandchildren, a daughter-in-law, one remaining sister, twelve brother and sisters in law, and too numerous to count nieces and nephews. Wayne and Patsy's son, Timothy Harrington, died in 1993.

Wayne will be interred in the Garden of the Pioneers on Tuesday, February 6, 2018 from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM at Eternal Valley Memorial Park Mortuary, 23287 North Sierra Hwy, Newhall, CA 91321.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.eternalvalleymortuary.com for the HARRINGTON family.