Norma Deanne Buchanan

Norma Deanne Buchanan died on December 19, 2025, in Suffolk, Virginia, after a brief illness. She spent her final days sharing treasured memories with all three of her living children.
Norma was born to Henry Harms and Olga (Haase) Harms on September 5, 1940, in Bertha, Minnesota, where her father owned a small-town blacksmith shop. She grew up surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Norma was a studious, hardworking child who baked a cake every afternoon for her four brothers to enjoy after their workshifts in the shop. After graduating as valedictorian from Bertha High School, Norma earned her bachelor's degree in mathematics at Valparaiso University in Indiana.
As a college student, Norma worked many jobs in order to pay her tuition. In one of those jobs, at the Pillsbury Company in Minneapolis, she conducted the market research that brought Butter Flake dinner rolls onto the market. At Valparaiso she learned computer programming on the IBM 610, becoming one of first women to work professionally as a programmer.
After college, Norma moved to Syracuse, New York, to take a position with General Electric. She was the only woman in a team of ten helping West Germany develop its air defense system. Her job was to calculate the likely trajectories of enemy aircraft, in case radar failed. This work took her to Wiesbaden, Germany, in the fall of 1963. There she met Arthur Buchanan, who had grown up just one hundred miles from Norma in Fargo, North Dakota. After a whirlwind romance, they married on June 20, 1964, in Bertha. Norma then moved to Woburn, Massachusetts, with Arthur, and worked briefly for the RCA Corporation. One of her tasks there was to calculate how much computing power would be needed to manage the Manned Orbiting Research Laboratory, a precursor to the International Space Station.
Norma and Arthur raised their four children, Matthew Lynn, Daniel Patrick, Mark Andrew, and Sarah Anne, in Lexington and then Pepperell, Massachusetts. Norma was fortunate to be able to be a stay-at-home mother as her children grew up, and then resume her career later. As a Cub Scout den mother, Sunday School teacher, and costume designer, she inspired her children and their friends with her deep faith, love of crafts, and tireless intellect. Some of her children began their theatrical careers re-enacting biblical stories in pageant after pageant at the Pepperell United Methodist Church and Trinity Lutheran Church in Chelmsford. Norma was also a prodigious gardener who often canned more than a hundred quarts of tomato sauce in a single summer.
Norma resumed her professional career in 1980, joining Arthur at MITRE Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts. During the final decades of the Cold War, she helped prevent Armageddon by developing computer security programs for missile guidance systems, often supervising teams staffed with former hackers and newly minted PhDs in computer science. From 1990 to her retirement in 1997 she served as a group leader, traveling frequently around the world and constantly retraining to keep up with changes in the computer industry.
After retirement, Norma became an avid quilter. She and the quilter's group of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Nashua, NH, contributed about fifty quilts a year to Lutheran World Relief, which sent them to high poverty and conflict zones around the world. As part of Christ the King's Sarah Circle, Norma led Bible studies, service projects, and the annual Advent Tea. For several years she organized Church Women United's annual World Day of Prayer service in Nashua. These events featured the contributions of women from specific countries, and each year Norma researched the chosen country, recruited speakers, and arranged the program.
In 2016 Norma moved with Arthur to Suffolk, Virginia. She immediately became deeply involved in Saint Paul's Episcopal Church and several local quilters' guilds. She treasured the opportunity to watch her daughter's daughters grow up. During her time in Virginia she mourned the deaths of her firstborn son, Matthew Lynn Buchanan, and her beloved Arthur, who died just six days before their sixtieth anniversary.
Norma is survived by her brothers Arthur and Wallace Harms of Bertha, Minnesota, her son Daniel (Buchanan) McKanan of Somerville, Massachusetts, her son Mark Buchanan of Nashua, New Hampshire, her daughter Sarah (Buchanan) Blake of Suffolk, Virginia, her daughter-in-law Tammy McKanan, her son-in-law Kevin Blake, and her granddaughters Oriana McKanan, Abigail Rebekah Blake, and Eleanor Hannah Blake.
A memorial service will be held at 3PM on Monday, January 19, 2026, at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church in Suffolk, Virginia. Donations to the American Macular Degeneration Foundation are welcome in lieu of flowers. R.W. Baker & Co. Funeral Home, Downtown Suffolk Chapel is serving the family.