Susan "Sue" Norris

Mystic CT - Susan Grace Norris of Mystic passed to "the other side" on Saturday, March 28, taking with her a lively and attractive presence and many years of service to others. She died of acute renal failure after living much of her life with less than one kidney. That sent her to frequent bathroom visits that would have sent many to isolation, but, with a keen mind and a good heart and honesty in living, she embraced new discoveries with others.

Born in Milwaukee on Feb. 1, 1950, Sue grew up in a family that moved, starting after her ninth birthday, every few years, from Wisconsin to Minnesota to Utah to Colorado to Ohio to New Jersey. Into junior high, she was an exceptional athlete, gifted in ice skating and gymnastics and running. On the frozen Menomonee River in Milwaukee, she started skating backward by nature. In fourth grade at Burroughs School in Minneapolis, she joined all students in a prescibed 50-yard dash, and she beat everyone, male and female and including her older brother, by four or five yards. She could peg a baseball with the best of them. But girls mostly were relegated to volleyball and cheeerleding, back then, and also encouraged to be "womanly" as they went through puberty. She was called "a very cute girl," and her effort to thin down was the start of her problem with kidneys.

In Th0mas Jefferson High School in Denver, coming of age, she neglected studies for the larger adventures of discovering herself and others, along with her just-younger sister Jean (they described themselves as the "Chorus Norris Sisters"). No drugs, in those druggie days, but plenty of alcohol. Both went on to long-lasting sobriety and, through Alcoholics Anonymous, to help others struggling with addiction.

Her greatest life-adventure started on a visit to her older brother in Omaha, where she met New York artist George Trakas, creating an installation on the city's northside. She and George spent memorable months together in the U.S. and in France and Italy, where he was installing his artworks, and they remained lifelong friends.

Sue put herself through Colorado University-Denver Center, earned an M.A. in Social Work from the University of Denver, met and married and gave birth to a son, Mark Cole, raising him with love through divorce. She came back to Milwaukee, where she spent 16 years as a social worker in the Milwaukee Public Schools, helping and encouraging many students and families dealing with poverty and racism. She also met and married her partner in life, Jim Storney, a Milwaukee police officer who, in the mounted patrol, rode horses into all neighborhoods, welcoming the young. Jim also played trumpet in a jazz group and discovered Sue's exceptional voice as a singer.

Sue also loved her rescue dogs, especially the Cardigan and Pembroke Corgis Cody and JJ, and her cat Marley.

Sue was preceeded in death by parents John D. Norris and Myra McMillan Furse, by sister Jean Norris Harper, by her son Mark Cole and by her husband Jim Storney. Survivors include two brothers, Tim Norris of Mystic CT (and his wife Mary Jane Fine) and Tom Norris of Parker CO, sister Sarah Norris of Yreka CA, nephews Alex and Ansel Norris and nephew and niece Jonathan and Kate Norris, and nieces Annie and Jessamyn.

A celebration of her life is being planned for July in Wisconsin.

Susan Norris