Hanover, N.H. —
Norman was unfailingly gracious, kind, and hard-working, with a wonderfully witty sense of humor. He was a popular professor, an articulate writer and eloquent lecturer with a keen intellect.
Norman was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Ind., where he was high school valedictorian. He graduated from Yale, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1947 with a B.A. in Classics and then spent two years at Balliol College, Oxford, reading Greats (ancient history and philosophy). He was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Princeton where he completed his PhD. In 1951, he enrolled with a Fulbright Fellowship in the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece where he met Pamela. After a short stint in the Army, he began teaching Classics at Dartmouth College in Hanover in 1955, until retiring in 1995.
Taking the family with him, he spent two separate years in Rome, Italy teaching, then on sabbatical, taking advantage of the research facilities at the American Academy and Vatican libraries. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, he led Dartmouth Foreign Study programs to Greece and Italy. Each summer from 1984 to 1995, he went to Spain as field director to excavate a large area of the Roman colony of Pollentia on the island of Mallorca, taking Dartmouth students with him each year. Two of those students came to visit with Norman just a week before his death.
He had a lifelong passion for tennis, playing into his late 80s. He enjoyed walking and hiking, reading, and listening to classical music. In later years, he developed an interest in Catalan cooking.
He will be greatly missed by his wife, Pamela; his three children: Cynthia (son-in-law, Galen), Stephanie and Jonathan; and three grandchildren: Andrew, Tim and Rebecca; along with his extended family. The family appreciates the excellent care Norman received at Kendal at Hanover.
Modest to the end, Norman preferred not to have a memorial service.