Colin Wordley

1939 - 2018

1939-2018 Colin Wordley returned to The Force on Memorial Day of 2018. Colin is survived by his loving wife Susan Duncan of Media, PA, his son Morgan Wordley of Morton, PA, his stepson Sean Damon of Philadelphia, PA, his sister Rita Wilson of Newmarket, England, and his brother Richard Wordley of Burry Port, Wales. A well-known Jedi warrior, Colin was born in Haverhill, England, in the county of Suffolk in 1939 during the Second World War. He skillfully evaded attempts by the Dark Side to take him out early on and gained a lifelong animosity toward Nazis. He had to contend with the Dark Side in a number of forms in his early years, namely the English system of public education and Sudbury Grammar School. There he would have to rebuff efforts to make him ‘just another brick in the wall’ until he finally was expelled on his last day of school for successfully resisting said efforts. He went through a number of jobs until he ended up landing a job in 1958 at the Cambridge Language Research Unit helping out some early computer programmers by fetching them tea and running errands. In a scene reminiscent of the movie Good Will Hunting, Mr. Wordley ended up helping them solve an algorithmic equation they were hung up on and subsequently his employers helped him get into college at Swarthmore. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1960 on the S.S Helga Oldendorf. Mr. Wordley graduated from Swarthmore College in 1964 with a B.A. in mathematics. He went on to work as lead programmer at the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and director of computing services at Wharton Econometrics. He eventually avoided success in business, a well-known path to the Dark Side, by starting his own business, Software Innovators, where he worked from 1984 through 2009. Shortly after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he retired to enjoy the rest of his life. He was stereotypically English and was a soccer coach and an avid gardener. He gave up his first love of alcohol to become a ‘teetotaler’ and was sober for 39 years. He was part of the fellowship of Alcoholic Anonymous in Delco where he refined his Force powers. He was often known to wear his Yoda shirt at local AA meetings and say “Do or do not, there is no try.” While this may sound pretty silly, there was something simultaneously adorable and profound about it. As one of his loved ones remarked, “He was a bit of a rogue, but he was lovable.” Indeed he stole a number of our hearts before he suddenly absconded after spending his final hours sitting by his garden in the backyard. He will be deeply missed by all who knew him. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, June 2nd, at 1:00 p.m. at Providence Friends Meeting, located at 105 North Providence Road in Media, PA. Donations may be made in his memory to The Parkinson’s Council (http://theparkinsoncouncil.org) at 111 Presidential Blvd., Suite 141, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004-1023 or The Parkinson’s Foundation (http://parkinson.org) at 200 SE First Street, Suite 800, Miami, FL 33131. Arrangements: Rigby Harting & Hagan Funeral Home, 15 E. Fourth St., Media, PA www.haganfuneralhome.com