Norton, Richard

Richard Norton was born on June 27, 1924 in Darien, Connecticut to Johanna E. “Joan” Koemmenich and Edwin Kenneth Norton. His grandfather, Edwin Norton, was an inventor and one of the founders of the American Can Company; his maternal grandfather was the musician, composer and conductor Louis Koemmenich. He grew up with two older brothers, Edwin K. Jr. and Thomas Akin, in New York, Switzerland and Connecticut.

He lost his father at age 9 and lived with his mother, grandmother and brothers in Switzerland in the 1930s. They returned to Connecticut in 1939.
He attended the Academy in Norfolk CT, schools in Switzerland and prepared at the Salisbury School. He entered Williams College with the class of 1946.

Having been rejected by the military Dick Norton joined the American Field Service and sailed to the Middle East with Unit ME 37. He served from May 1943 to June 1945 in North Africa, Italy and France.

While with Section 2 in France this anecdote is reported in The History of the American Field Service 1920-1955: “On the afternoon of the 20th [March 1945], Mark Ethridge, Don Gillis, Dick Norton, and Jimmy Salinas went out on a jeep purely for the ride and to ‘set a record’ and crossed the German border at Lauterbourg. They preceded [Brinton] Young by several hours and actually were the first AFS men in Germany – but they were not on duty, were not in an ambulance, and deserve credit only for risking their necks.”

Richard Norton was awarded the French Croix de Guerre and the European-African-Middle-Eastern campaign ribbon for his service with the AFS.

Norton sailed back from Antwerp on the Liberty ship SS Paul Buck arriving in New York on July 3, 1945.
Within days of his return, on July 12^th, he married Ann A. Sprague at Redding, Connecticut. A wedding where AFS was well represented.

Dick Norton was an artist, this being his primary occupation. The following years were overshadowed by health problems and the couple travelled through Europe in search of a cure. In 1950 the family, including a son and a daughter, moved to Tucson, Arizona.

Richard Norton passed away on January 20, 1951 in Tucson at age 26 of an incurable kidney disease.