A Home Built on a Child's Needs

Dressed in a bright turtleneck and slacks, Katherine struck a classic pose on the sofa, her hands clasped together in front of her. When she mugged for the camera, saying, "Cheese," her mother laughed and said, "Stop it, girl."

During the week, both women are busy. Katherine attends the Art and Drama Therapy Institute in Northeast Washington, a day program for mentally retarded adults that uses the arts to stimulate learning. Navigating the colorful hallways with a growing confidence, she works with a speech pathologist and takes part in Japanese theater.

But at home at night, she is ready to settle down with her mother in the cozy second-floor study. As Norton reads in a nearby recliner, Katherine entertains herself on the sofa with the two activities she loves best: putting together her wooden puzzles, a dozen of them at a time, and going through her boxes of family photographs.

Occasionally, Norton will look up and catch a certain expression on Katherine's face.

"Sometimes, she sits in deep thought and she'll smile and you'd love to know what's going through Katherine's mind -- there's something very special going through her mind," Norton said. "And what are those thoughts that she entertains herself with? Is it something she did? Is it about something she remembers? It doesn't seem to be about anything that's happening in the room. She has an inner life, she has a life to which she responds, and when you see her -- she doesn't talk about it -- but when you see it, it's so rapturous for her to think about that it lights up her face.

"And I am sorry I am locked out of it, but I enjoy it just by looking at her."

Part of the Family

When Katherine Felicia Norton was born on July 9, 1970, her mother already was a powerhouse in New York City government, the highest-ranking black woman in Mayor John V. Lindsay's administration. Eleanor Holmes Norton was seven months pregnant when Lindsay appointed her chair of the city's Commission on Human Rights.

"It was a very public pregnancy," she said. According to her biography, newspaper reports at the time had her dictating memos between contractions.

Growing up in Washington, the oldest of three girls in a middle-class family, she had excelled at everything she attempted -- from being president of her junior high class to attending Yale Law School when women, especially black women, were a rarity there. By 32, she had worked in the South to help secure voting rights for blacks -- and successfully defended then-segregationist George Wallace in his right to free speech. Wearing her hair in a big Afro, she was intense and energetic, a passionate speaker.

Norton and her husband, Edward, also a lawyer, educated at Yale and Columbia, were excited at the prospect of their first child. But as soon as Norton gave birth, the doctor said he wanted to run some tests. He suspected that Katherine had Down syndrome.

"What shocked me was the doctor said to Edward and me, 'Well, now, if you would like to place this child . . .' We thought he had lost place of his mind," Norton said, still angry at the memory. "There may be people who aren't able to take care of a child, but we certainly could -- we were well-educated people who had no infirmities ourselves. And my goodness, why would we want to give up our first child? So we certainly let that one pass on by -- 'This child is not going anywhere, except home.' "

Although she would later refer to Katherine's condition as "the most unexpected thing" that ever happened to her, she insisted she never cried about her little daughter.