Cecil Austin Best

Cecil Austin Best was born March 24,1933 in Holmes County Florida to Lillie Pitts Best and Hubert Best. He was the middle child sandwiched between two sisters, Faith and Betty. He enjoyed life as a carefree farm boy and had some hair-raising adventures. He and his sisters loved to play church in the barn loft and one time were shouting and singing so loudly the roof fell on them. An attempt to drive his father’s car resulted in a fast trip down the hill straight toward the creek, family members in hot pursuit. He started school young and had to pick cotton to help pay for school supplies.

Following an acrimonious divorce, Lillie moved her family to Columbus, Georgia and ended up raising her three children as a single mother until Cecil was in his early teens. It was a difficult time for Cecil because he was very close to the grandfather he left behind. Twenty years would go by before he saw his father’s family again. Lillie settled her children into the first public housing apartments in Columbus. The family was poor and in high school Cecil only owned two pairs of pants.

After failing the first grade, Cecil became a dedicated student and graduated as valedictorian of his high school class. He left for Georgia Tech in the fall of 1952 with $65 he’d worked all summer to save, a cardboard suitcase, and a borrowed trunk. He was drafted into the Army and was sent to Korea in 1954. Upon his completion of military service, he returned to Georgia Tech and finished his education, paid for by the GI bill.

He met Mary Ellen Brucke at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Atlanta and they married in March of 1962. They moved to Huntsville in 1964 where he began a career as an engineer at NASA, working on the Apollo program. He bought his first television to watch Apollo 8 orbit the moon. A highlight of his career was taking his family to Cape Canaveral to watch the Apollo 11 launch. He also worked on the Skylab and Space Shuttle Programs.

Since leaving the farm when he was quite young, Cecil always yearned to be a farmer. Even though he lived within the Huntsville city limits, he provided a home for a myriad of dogs, some geese and rabbits, kept a beehive, brought home 50 baby chicks from the feed store that turned out to be all roosters, and had a handful of Bantam hens. He brought home a pony for the children and adopted an orphaned calf, Moo-Moo, that got to spend its first night in the house in the boys’ bedroom. He could only open a can of Vienna sausages and a pack of crackers on the rare occasion he had to feed himself; but he faithfully cooked up a hot meal of dinner scraps, gravy, and dog food on the kitchen stove for the dogs every night. No food, scraps, or compost ever went to waste. He saved all of it so even the squirrels and other critters would have something to eat.

His five kids never lacked for backyard entertainment. He bought a used above-ground pool that was filled with kids from May to September then stocked with catfish in the fall and winter so the boys could fish. The rusty old pool provided year-round fun for many years until one day the cows trampled it. Family vacations were often visits to relatives or spent on camping at the old homestead in Holmes County, Florida where we played, swam, and fished in the creek, cooked our meals on a Coleman camp stove, and slept in the hay loft of the old barn. These trips also usually involved some sort of major car repair performed by Cecil on the side of the road.

One day in 1974 Cecil came home with a 1953 Ford Jubilee Tractor with a dilapidated front-end loader mounted to it, and the basement project began. Excavating a basement under a house with a crawl space was quite the project, accomplished over roughly 30 years of first kids, then teenagers, and then young adults swinging a pickaxe, shoveling dirt, laying block, and pouring concrete. It was the primary life-defining experience of being a Best. Fifty-one years later the basement is mostly finished and is home to many retired appliances -- a few engines, a couple transmissions, and enough Volkswagen parts to assemble a Beetle. The basement clutter became so great at one point that the boys built a large, detached garage to house the overflow. It’s full now too. Cecil could not throw anything away. Everything had some value, whether it was copper wire in an electrical cord, lead in a battery, or string from a dog food sack -- you never know when you might need some string.

Cecil also could not pass on a good used car deal, usually spending no more than $500. Most were some shade of putrid green or banana yellow, and some came with wood paneling. At one point according to Zachary’s estimate, we had 14 cars in the yard — the ones that ran were out front and the retired ones or “fixer-uppers” were parked in back behind the fence.

Multiple cows, a pony, geese, rabbits, a beehive, fifty roosters, six or eight Bantam hens, catfish in the swimming pool, a cat here and there, and anywhere from four to thirteen dogs (including puppies) were part of the backyard menagerie. This was the Best compound. And everyone loved it. There was always company at the Best house. One family that stopped over on their way to Disney World scrapped their plans to go on to Orlando and stayed for a week, because in their words, “this is better than Disney World.”

Cecil deeply loved his family and he and Mary Ellen raised five children. He is survived by his wife and children — Kimberly Malik (Todd), Joel Best, Jonathan Best (Kim), Zachary Best (Gina), and Julie Wilson (Jim), and honorary son Brent Parker. He greatly enjoyed being Papa to his beloved nine grandchildren -- Austin, Caden, Luke, Abigail, Jackson, Samuel, Isabelle, Benjamin, and Joy.

Cecil’s legacy lives on with his surviving family. Mary Ellen is his equal in kindness and grace, and her front garden of flowers, plants, bottle trees, and other miscellaneous yard decorations (mainly roadside relics picked up and brought over by Joel) is the envy of the neighborhood. And at almost 89, she’s still driving too…watch out! Kimberly inherited his love of music and the old hymns and is a talented musician and vocalist. She also has Aunt Faye’s crazy gene according to the other siblings. Joel inherited Cecil’s compassion for those less fortunate and his home, kitchen, and wallet have been open to numerous people needing help and direction for going on 20 years now. Jonathan followed Cecil into the Army and is the rebel of the bunch, introducing the family to long hair and loud motorcycles. His and his wife Kim’s home is host to most family gatherings as everyone wants to hang out there. Zachary followed Cecil to Georgia Tech and inherited his love of machinery. The old Ford and Gravely tractors are the charter members of his growing collection of old junk tractors. And Julie inherited Cecil’s even temperament and soft disposition, evidenced by her three usually pleasant children, plus Benjamin, who might have Cecil’s childhood affinity for mischief.

Cecil came from humble beginnings and grew up poor, but he died rich beyond measure -- not in material wealth, status, or things but in a life well lived. He accepted Christ as his Savior in high school and served Him his whole life. He saw worth in all people and all things and found joy in all circumstances. To his dying day, Cecil could sing the words to almost all the verses of all the old, great hymns, and could recite the words to poems he learned growing up, usually to a tune. He was a fine man, husband, father, grandfather, and friend, and will be greatly missed.

Funeral services will be held Saturday, February 8, 2025, at Calvary Baptist Church on 126 Douglass Rd. Huntsville, Alabama. Visitation will be at 10:30 at the church, with a celebration of life service at 12:00 noon. A brief graveside service with military honors will follow at Huntsville Memory Gardens.

Services will be livestreamed on the church website at www.cbchuntsville.org

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