A Home Built on a Child's Needs

"Why would I cry? I was absorbed in how beautiful this child was. Here was a baby who smiled incessantly. I was completely taken with her. . . .

"And I never for a moment said, 'Why me?' In fact, the exact opposite occurred to me, that as chances go around, it made some sense in the cosmic sense of how the world works, that it would be our turn to have this child."

She went back to work. Her "extraordinary" mother-in-law, Blanche Norton, helped out with the baby. Twenty months later, John Norton was born, and with time, he would assume the role of big brother to his sister.

"She was the sweetest person," said John Norton, 33, who works in public relations, about Katherine as a child. He remembers dressing up both of them in old clothes, a stunt that sent his delighted parents running for the camera.

In 1977, the family moved to Washington; President Jimmy Carter had appointed Eleanor Holmes Norton as the first woman to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She ran for Congress in 1990 and won. John went off to college. Eleanor and Edward were divorced. Katherine was always enrolled in a program that kept her days full.

Once in a while, a well-meaning person would suggest that she move into a group home with other mentally retarded adults. But Norton was never interested.

"My theory is this: I'm very pleased there are group homes, but I don't know why I would want to send my daughter to live with somebody besides her mother. She is my family," Norton said. "So to those people, I just say, 'Thank you very much.' "

Comforts and Challenges

Katherine loves her routines. On weekday mornings, she wakes up, greets her mother, and asks, "Where's Howard?" Vermell Howard, 66, has been working for the Nortons for the past 12 years and helps Katherine get ready on weekday mornings.

Katherine tries to help Howard as much as she can. "I'm a good girl," she says often. She sets out her toothpaste and toothbrush and starts running her bathwater. She helps make up her bed.

"If I don't feel good, it seems like she can feel it," Howard said. "She'll say, 'Poor Howard,' and pat me on the back."

In the kitchen, making breakfast, Howard consults the menus Norton writes up and leaves on the counter each day. Katherine recently lost 20 pounds, the result of changes her mother made in her diet. Although Katherine has adjusted to the diet, she compensates on weekend visits with her father, when he cooks her favorite chicken and lets her eat all she wants.

"Her time with me is like a jailbreak," Edward Norton said jokingly.