Roy E. Harrington

Roy E. Harrington, 88, of Moline, Illinois, died Thursday, October 9, 2014, in his home.

Services are 3 p.m. on Saturday, October 18, 2014, at First Baptist Church, Moline, followed by Whitey's ice cream and visiting with the family in the church's Fellowship Hall. Memorials may be made to the church. Trimble Funeral Home at Trimble Pointe, 701 12th Street, Moline, is assisting the family.

Roy Edwards Harrington was born October 23, 1925, on a farm near Atlanta, Missouri, to Quincy and Ethel Edwards Harrington. He was a sergeant in the U. S. Army Infantry at the end of WW II. He graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1950, in Agricultural Engineering. He married Dorose Zink on September 6, 1953, in Plano, Illinois.

A week after graduating from college, he joined Product Development Department of Deere and Company. He was a prolific inventor with his name on 21 patents. The first one Deere produced was a tubular PTO shield with nylon bearings. Since it was a safety device, its use was given freely to all competitors and is now in use worldwide. The second one was a greatly improved seat suspension for the new line of 4 and 6-cylinder tractors. It was adjustable for the operator's height and weight. This seat was used on 90 models of Deere equipment over a period of 20 years.

Roy was manager of the Product Development Department from 1960 to 1966. At that time, he took a 5 year leave of absence to work for the Ford Foundation with the Government of India. He was one of 20 Ford Foundation employees helping to improve Indian farming. This was most effective in Punjab where new varieties of wheat with proper fertilizer greatly increased yields, resulting in the Green Revolution. Since then, with the use of tractors they are able to grow two crops per year, wheat the first and rice the second.

From 1971 to 1986. Roy was Manager of Livestock Equipment Planning in the Product and Market Planning Department of Deere and Company. He worked in agricultural development for six weeks in China in 1979, and in Mexico for three weeks in 1985. Following retirement, he worked in Hungary for the World Bank and in India with Agricultural Engineering departments in their universities

After retirement, the American Society of Agricultural Engineers asked Roy to join Don Macmillan of England in co-authoring "John Deere Tractors and Equipment", Volume Two 1960-1990, because Roy worked with the John Deere factories. About 4,000 copies have been sold. With the success of that book, Roy was then asked to write three children's books, spanning the ages of first to eighth grade.

Roy was very active in his church, and several civic organizations. He was a Fellow Member of American Society of Agricultural Engineers and served as vice president from 1987 to 1990; a Fellow Member of the Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers; a member of Society of Automotive Engineers and Quad City World Affairs Council; and a director of Arrowhead Ranch for 10 years.

Roy is survived by his wife of 61 years, Dorose Zink Harrington; daughters and sons-in-law, Ellen and Jim Bachman of Mesa, Arizona, Janet and Tom Fish of Wooster, Ohio, and Linda Timmons of Elgin, Illinois; five grandchildren, Myra Thompson, Marilyn Fish, Bradley Thompson, Lauren Timmons, and Lindsay Timmons; a brother Burch Harrington of Chillicothe, Missouri; and an adopted sister, Ling Kang Go of LaPlatta, Missouri. He was preceded in death by sisters, Fern Miles and Helen Spees, and a brother, Ward Harrington.

Roy's family invites friends to share stories and condolences and light a free candle in his memory at www.TrimbleFuneralHomes.com.