Norman E. Sparks

1917 - 2008

A graveside service for Norman E. Sparks, 91, will be held at 2 p.m. Monday, Aug. 4, 2008, with Dr. Brian Taylor officiating at the Carlsbad Cemetery.
Mr. Sparks died Friday, Aug. 1, 2008, at his home in San Antonio, Texas.
West Funeral Horne in Carlsbad, N.M. is in charge of arrangements.
Norman was born April 25, 1917 at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Ga., where his father was on recruiting duty for the Navy. Shortly afterward, he and his parents, Ellsworth Foraker Sparks and Ruth Mann Sparks, moved to Port Arthur, Texas. This was the home port for the Navy tanker on which his father spent World War II hauling oil to ships of the Atlantic fleet. From that time, every three years the family moved to Pensacola, Fla., to Yorktown, Va., to San Diego, Calif., to Portsmouth, N.H. and to Long Beach, Calif., as Ellsworth was transferred from shore duty to sea duty. Norman graduated from high school in Long Beach in 1934. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from San Diego State College in 1940 with a bachelor of arts degree, majoring in chemistry.
Following graduation, Norman was employed for four years as a chemist at the American Potash & Chemical Company in Trona, Calif., a few miles from Death Valley. Then he was drafted into the Army, where, after basic training, he was trained in chemical warfare. He was then sent abroad on the U.S. Army Hospital Ship "Mercy," where he served in the Pacific bringing home wounded and injured soldiers from Yokohama, Okinawa and Manila to the ports or Seattle and San Francisco. He received his honorable discharge in the fall of 1947. Soon afterward, he was employed as a chemist by the L.I.S. Potash Company in Carlsbad.
On March 2, 1956, Norman married Jeanette Wertheim, daughter of Joseph and Emma Wertheim. Before that time, her father had died and Jeanette and Emma were operating the Joseph Wertheim Insurance Agency. Norman joined them about a year later. The agency continued in operation until 1985, Emma having died in November 1982. After selling the business, Norman retired and managed a small home business while Jeanette became a Realtor, continuing in that profession until she decided to retire in 1998. For many years they traveled extensively to foreign and domestic locations. After Jeanette died in 2004, Norman moved to San Antonio, where he could be close to his daughter.
One of his major forms of entertainment and community commitment was writing letters to the editor of the Carlsbad Current-Argus. Norman believed in exercising daily to stay healthy and to promote longevity. In Carlsbad he walked up to six miles a day, and in San Antonio he swam at 5:30 a.m., followed by a two-mile wa1k in the mall. He was preceded in death by his wife, Jeanette Wertheim Sparks; two brothers, .James M. and John Paul Sparks: and a grandson, Jonathan Alan Scott. He is survived by his two children: Samuel and Emily Sparks; five grandchildren; Adam Scott, Amanda Kirk, Travis Kirk, James Sparks, Kyle Sparks, and two great-grandchildren.