1912 – 2014

AUBURN — Addie A. Norman, 101, died Monday, Nov. 3, at the Hospice House of Androscoggin Home Care and Hospice.

She was born in Quincy, Mass., on Nov. 20, 1912, a daughter of Wilbert and Mary (Gerrior) Doyle. Addie had an older brother, Wilbert; an older sister, Kathryn; and a younger sister, Dorothy.

The president was Woodrow Wilson. This family was patriotic and proud to live “in the home of the presidents.” They were the first family in town to have electric lights in their beautiful chandelier in the dining room.

These were exciting times, but also hard times. Addie remembered her father speaking of the flu epidemic in 1916; he said, “They can’t bury people fast enough.” In 1915, Addie contracted polio, then called infantile paralysis. The doctors didn’t know what to do at the time and Addie said, “I was put in a plaster cast and quarantined from the family for 10 weeks, and suffered several consequent operations before age 14.” To add to this young family’s hardships, her mother died in 1918, and her brother, Wilbert, died of tuberculosis in 1928.

The family eventually moved to an apple farm in Freeport. There, she and her siblings attended the one-room Bailey Schoolhouse of 13 children and learned to overcome their sad beginning.

Addie was above and beyond. She could go everywhere on her small crutches. Before she was allowed to go to school at age 7, she taught herself to read the comic strips. This amazing determination lasted her whole life. Even at 100, the button on her sweater read, “I’ve Survived Damn Near Everything.”

After graduating from Edward Little High School, she worked in the shoe factories, at that time Maine’s very lucrative industry. Unsatisfied, she took a business course and worked at the law offices of Fales, Fales and Peters. She worked for three lawyers and she was paid $2 a week! The elder partner was blind, and she had to read law cases to him and do minor cleaning. This was not what she had expected with her new skills and she decided she could make a better wage at the Clark Shoe Factory, where she could earn $15 per week! The lawyers wanted her to return to their firm, but they were unwilling to offer her an acceptable wage.

Addie became a loyal and skilled employee working as a skiver, which had always been a man’s job. She met and married George Norman in 1937, who was a shoe cutter. They made their home in Auburn and enjoyed many car trips and travels in the Vacationland of Maine.

It was not until her husband passed away in 1971 that she began winter visits to her sister, Kathryn’s, home in Florida. Her younger sister, Dorothy, is 97 and located permanently in California. Kathryn passed away at 102. But these fun-loving, strong and persevering sisters from Maine made it through life’s challenges and became the centenarians of their families.