CECIL PORTER, 91, RETIRED PLANTATION FIRE INSPECTOR
Miami Herald, The (FL) - Tuesday, January 14, 1992
His age never stopped Cecil Porter from trying to help people.

When he was 42, he enlisted in the U.S Navy to fight in World War II. When he was 67, he joined the brand-new Plantation Volunteer Fire Department. And when he was 74, he became a fire inspector. He didn't retire until he was 80.

"He enjoyed fire inspections," said Richard Steele, a division chief with the Fire Department. "He wanted people to have a better and safer place."

Cecil Raymond Porter, a 48-year resident of Broward County, died Monday after a long bout with Parkinson's disease, said his wife, Madge Walter Porter. He was 91.

Born in Monticello, Maine, Porter attended an engineering vocational school in Kansas, his wife said. When he enlisted in the Navy, they put him in charge of the diesel engines on a boat that went overseas to England and Germany, but sank during a bad storm off the coast of Georgia, his wife said.

Porter and his first wife, Virginia Linscott, were friends with Madge Walter and her husband, and moved down from Boston to Fort Lauderdale in 1943. After Madge Walter and Cecil Porter each was widowed, they kept up their friendship and married in 1985.

He joined the Fire Department, which had fewer than 30 members at the time, because of his wife and friends, she said. "We all urged him to," she said. "He needed something to do. It was something to do to help people."

By 1975, the Fire Department asked him to become a warden -- which meant he would help the Police Department with traffic duties -- and also became a captain in the ranks of the fire inspectors, Steele said. By the time he retired in 1980, the department had about 80 members, compared with 150 now.

In addition to his wife, Porter is survived by two brothers and five sisters, all of whom live in Maine. There will be a service at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Covenant Village Palm Chapel in Plantation. Arrangements are by the T.M. Ralph Plantation Funeral Home.

Miami Herald, The (FL) - Tuesday, January 14, 1992
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