A Home Built on a Child's Needs
Norton's Private Side Shelters Her Daughter

By Sue Anne Pressley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 8, 2005

Every Saturday, the two of them go to Eastern Market. While her mother runs inside to buy fruit, turkey sausage, flowers, Katherine Norton prefers to wait in the car -- there may be a dog out there, and Katherine is afraid of dogs.

But when they reach their Capitol Hill home, the young woman springs from the back seat as if on a mission. Eagerly, she reaches for the packages, then carries them carefully up the steps and in the door. She insists on doing this every week, one of her ways of showing her mother how helpful she can be.

Katherine Norton, who will turn 35 in July, has Down syndrome, a genetic condition that occurs once in every 1,000 births and causes mental retardation of varying degrees. Her mother is Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), 67, the eight-term D.C. delegate to Congress.

Norton is one of the best-known public figures in the area, but few have been privy to her life at home. In the presence of her firstborn child and only daughter, the Washington warrior falls away and Katherine's mother takes over.

"It's fascinating. This is not the Eleanor the public knows, the one who says: 'Get this done now. What do you mean, you aren't finalizing the District budget?' " said Joan Steinau Lester, who wrote Norton's 2003 biography, "Fire in My Soul," and has known her since college. "This is such a different side of her."

With Katherine, "she's just endlessly patient."

Although Norton has never dwelt on Katherine's condition, she has "never tried to hide it," she said. For years, the young woman has stood at her mother's side as she announced for reelection, often shaking a few hands. But Norton has seldom spoken at length about her daughter. She decided to do so now, she said, because she wanted to show that a mentally retarded adult can live happily at home.

"It didn't seem to me to be in keeping with my own sense of responsibility to say, 'Oh, no, I don't want to talk about Katherine,' " Norton said. These days, the two of them live alone, assisted by a caretaker who comes in weekday mornings and afternoons.

Katherine, who is shy but has a bright smile, has "very limited" skills, her mother said, and difficulty speaking. Although she usually understands what is being said to her, she is often unable to find the words to respond. At times, however, her speech is clear: "I'm Kathy," she said recently, introducing herself to a new acquaintance.

In her matter-of-fact style, Norton deliberately chooses the plainest phrase to describe Katherine: "She's retarded." But any suggestion that she requires special treatment is quickly shot down.

"It doesn't take much patience with Katherine," Norton said briskly, watching as her daughter posed for photographs on a recent Saturday afternoon. "We have a good time together, don't we, Katherine? . . . Hey, Kathy! I love you!"

"I love you, Mama," Katherine replied with enthusiasm.

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.

"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.

A few years ago, her mother discovered the Art and Drama Therapy Institute, and Katherine enjoys it so much that on school holidays, her brother said, "she's a little bit sad."

The facility operates on the premise that "God gave everybody a gift," said Margaret Dickinson, one of the founders. To rouse their interests and build their self-esteem, Katherine and her 140 classmates are bombarded with drama lessons, music sessions and art workshops. When she started there, Katherine was apprehensive about many things -- refusing to step on a stage, for instance -- but gradually, she has come out of her shell.

Part of her day is spent in speech class. Working one-on-one with teacher Regina Thomas, she sat tense with concentration on a recent morning, as Thomas flipped through a set of picture cards. Katherine correctly identified a cat but hesitated when the teacher showed her a picture of a boat.

"Cat?" she ventured, then used the sign language she recently learned to ask for "help."

"Boat," Thomas said, and Katherine repeated the word emphatically, looking relieved.

In theater class that same day, the once-stage-shy Katherine surprised everyone when she tried out for a part in a play. Asked to choose a mask to wear, she picked a flamboyant one, pale blue with a trailing veil. "That's a diva mask," Dickinson whispered from the sidelines. "She would never go for that one in the past."

But in a few minutes, Katherine, clad in the mask and a Japanese kimono, walked onto the stage, holding an unopened fan in front of her face. As she took a bow, her classmates clapped and cheered: "Way to go, Katherine!" She had won her first part ever in a play.

Later, she climbed aboard the white van for the ride home. She hugged the waiting Howard, ate her dinner of a hamburger and a salad, then went upstairs to her puzzles and pictures. Before long, her mother would come home after her own busy day -- and they would settle in together for the evening.