Person:J Norman Norton (1)

J. Norman Norton was born and raised in Bath, Sagadahoc County, Maine. He was the son of John Roscoe Norton, and Edith Mabel (Ward) Norton. When he was being punished for something he didn't do, and had to stay inside, he would sit at his bedroom window with the window open and play his Jewish harp, and his friends nicnamed him "Kiko". When Norman was fourteen and a freshman at Morse High School, in Bath, He started working at his Uncle Herbie's restaurant on Front Street, baking pies, from 4:00 a.m. until 12 noon on Sunday's, and his specialty was lemon meringue. He started running the "track" in high school, and towards the end of his freshman year he was on the track team, and by the middle of his junior year he had won medals and ribbons, and had broken all records for the one and two mile run. He was offered a full college scholarship to the college of his choice as "placekicker" for the football team, if he would transfer from Morse High School in Bath, to Edward Little High School in Lewiston, Maine, for his senior year. His half-brother Walter Irving Norton, from his father's first marriage, was still living at home as Head-of-the-house, and his wife Ida, from his second marriage along with his three youngest children from his first marriage, were there, so the 81 Bedford Street house was busy. And since Norman's older brother Mike had recently moved out on his own, Norman was asked to turn down the scholarship and stay at Morse High in Bath for his final year. His Dad was sixty-two, and his mother was fifty-three, and they needed all the help they could get.

Norman attended the First Baptist Church on 851 Washington Street in Bath, on Sunday's, and when he was eighteen he started to preach the sermon once-a-month. When he graduated from Morse High in June 1924, he started working longer hours at Uncle Herbie's restaurant. By the end of the summer of 1925, he was offered the opportunity to work for Governor Walter Edge of New Jersey and (Small Point) Phippsburg, Maine, as chauffeur for Mrs. Camilla Loyal (Sewell) Edge. His first job was in early June driving to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to pickup Mrs. Edge, and drive her down to Small Point, Phippsburg, Maine. From that point on, he would chauffeur her wherever she needed to go for the summer. This was like Driving Miss Daisy

Mrs. Edge was a first cousin to Lt. Arthur Harold Sewell, of New York City, and Washington Street, Bath, Maine, and a very close friend of his wife's, Annalane "Lani" (Warren) Sewell. It was at this time Mrs. Sewell was looking for a nanny for her expected newborn, and her other three young children. The Sewell's were also close friends with Dr. and Mrs. Frank Oppenheimer of 1148 Fifth Avenue, New York City, and the Oppenheimer's nanny, Catherine McCaffery, happened to have a younger sister, Elizabeth Juliette (Julia) McCafferty, who was still living at home in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, and when Catherine wrote home to Scotland and told Julia about the position, she accepted. On September 26, 1928, one month after her twentieth birthday, Julia boarded the Cunard Line RMS Mauretania in Southampton, England, and sailed to America. She arrived in New York City on September 31, 1928, and went to work for Mrs. Sewell in New York City. The following summer (1929), the Sewell's with Julia and their four children left New York City and moved back to their Washington Street homed in Bath, Maine.

Norman was still chauffeuring Mrs. Edge, and because of her close friendship with Mrs. Sewell, he happened to be spending a lot of time at the Sewell house on Washington Street, so he met Julia soon after the Sewell's arrived from New York City. He was twenty-three and she was twenty-one. They dated for a few years and were married on October 26, 1935, at the St. Mary's Roman Catholic Rectory in Bath, Maine. The marriage was officiated by Father Timothy Maney, and two witnesses, Walter and Evelyn Mosher, respectively. They waited six months before telling anyone they were married because Norman was waiting for his position as Boilermaker to come up at the BIW (Bath Iron Works). They were renting the upstairs of the 81 Beacon Street house in Bath, and six-months after their second child was born, they moved to the Norton home on 2 Marcia Street, which is now known as 2 Carriage House Lane. The 2,622 sq. ft. historic home was built in 1840, and was purchased in the early 1900s by William Herbert Norton, Norman's Uncle Herbie from the restaurant.

William Herbert (Herbie) Norton died on December 26, 1937, the day after Christmas, six months shy of his eightieth birthday. He is buried at the Oak Grove Cemetery with his wife, Lillian M (Stevens) Norton, who predeceased him by two years at the age of seventy-three.

When William Herbert Norton's "Last Will and Testament" was read, he had willed his home on 2 Marcia Street in Bath, Maine, to Elizabeth Juliette "Julia" (McCafferty) Norton, the wife of his nephew J Norman Norton, as he was very fond of the "little redhead from Scotland", but his family, not so much.

In the winter of 1942, when Norman was working at the BIW (Bath Iron Works) as a boilermaker, he fell from a scaffold that had tipped. He was wearing a harness and lanyard, but on the way down the lanyard loosened and he dropped below the six feet the lanyard allowed, and straddled a pipe. He ended up with a broken arm. Four and-a-half years later he started having problems from the fall. In April 1947, he purchased a summer home (The 2 cottages on the ocean) at Five Islands, Maine, left the Bath Iron Works, and opened up the Five Islands Lobster Pound. As a side job in the spring and fall he painted houses in Bath. In 1949 he went to work for Pratt Whitney Aircraft in Springfield, Massachusetts, with his brother-in-law, Eddie Collins, and the two of them commuted together and came home to Bath on weekends. Norman sold the house on Marcia Street, in Bath, in the summer of 1952, and moved the family to Springfield, Massachusetts, to be closer to his job at Pratt Whitney. A year later he started having more problems from the fall he took at the BIW. He was advised to see a good man's kidney doctor, so he moved to Kearny, Hudson County, New Jersey to be close to his wife's brother's family, and a good doctor they had recommended. The family came back to the cottages at Five Islands each summer as Norman was still running the Five Islands Lobster Pound. In 1959 his wife, Julia became gravely ill and was diagnosed with cancer, and Norman made the decision to stay home and take care of her when other family members thought otherwise. He did what his heart told him, and fifteen months later on December 12, 1960, she was gone. He was devastated, but had no regrets, and always said he did the right thing by her.

Norman sold the house on 556 Belgrove Drive in Kearny, New Jersey, in 1961, and moved back to the cottages in Maine. He sold the cottages in 1964 and moved to Connecticut. He settled in the New Haven area and eventually opened up a convenience store and specialized in "grinders". In his later years he left Connecticut and moved to New Jersey to be with his daughter, Patricia and her family.

Elizabeth Juliette (McCafferty) Norton died on December 12, 1960, at the age of fifty-three, and J Norman Norton died on February 24, 1990, at the age of eighty-three. They are buried together in the Oak Grove Cemetery, Norton family plot Section 2 South, Lot 27, 2SA

1. ↑ Norton, J N, in Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index: Death Master File, database. (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service)
   Online database, Accessed 6 Feb 2011.

   RootsWeb SSDI database:
   NORTON, J N
   Born: 31 Aug 1906
   Died: Feb 1990
   Age: 83
   Last Address: 08210 (Cape May Court House, Cape May, NJ)
   Last Benefit: (none specified)
   SS Issued: Maine
   SS#: 004-10-8440

2.   Norton, John R, in Cemetery Records, Oak Grove Cemetery
   Section 2 South, Lot 27.

   6 Grave spaces and perpetual care. J Norman Norton, his wife Elizabeth J Norton are both buried in plot 2South of this lot. J Norman Norton was cremated.
   Also buried here are two (2) infants: Bryan David Ford 11-02-1965, and
   Julie-Ann Ford 07-07-1967, who are the children of Patricia Norton-Ford and grandchildren
   of J. Norman Norton and Elizabeth Juliette McCafferty (Julia) Norton
   
   * Julie-Ann Ford, died 7 Jul 1967, buried 10 Jul 1967 (age 1 day)
   * Bryan David Ford, died 2 Nov 1965, buried 3 Nov 1965 (age 1 day).