Cecil Louis Gagnon

Cecil Louis Gagnon was born to Philip and Eunice Gagnon on April 6, 1930, and said farewell to the ones he loved on March 21, 2024, just shy of his 94th birthday. He was our dad, your brother, uncle, and friend. Cecil served in the Korean War and returned to Waitsburg before moving to Idaho, Oregon, then back to Waitsburg. He built his first home in Hines, Oregon, before returning to Waitsburg. After a few years, he moved his family back to Oregon to begin his very successful lifelong career of homebuilding.

Cecil (dad) was an amazing man. Family and friends who really knew him, know that he had a real desire to learn and explore just about everything. As kids, we had the amazing opportunity to go places, camp, hike, look for mushrooms, explore the desert and mountains, learn skills, and have life experiences. There was nothing like tagging along with him as he taught us how to build things, do research, take photographs, rock hound, identify wildflowers, how to hunt artifacts and their history, or just look up at the stars. He wanted us to learn something new every day. We hunted arrowheads, dug for old bottles, hunted fossils, went canoeing, made getting firewood fun, and explored everything.

Cecil (dad) was a home builder and built many homes and completed many remodels in the John Day, OR area over the years and his skills were very sought after. Dad was creative as any one person can be and was a self-taught artist in more ways than one. His talents included mainly landscape paintings, but there were so many other talents that went along with that, including caricature carvings, photography, bird watching, and building sleighs, wagons, and other pioneer-type transportation at his after-retirement job (until age 85). Dad's debut on OPB featuring his carving was a surprise and very exciting! A man of many talents and a hard worker, he earned respect and friendship from everyone he knew and met.

His accomplishments are too many to count, but our love for this man that was our rock, our stability, our driver to experience the world, will be so deeply missed.

We love you, dad, Debbie & Pam