Norris Leo Thurston

Norris Leo Thurston, who died at Transition Life (Hospice) in Raleigh, North Carolina was a man who helped people in his work and in his private life. In Saco, Maine, at Cascade Lodge, where he worked in his school years, he arranged people’s vacation accommodations. At the University of Maine he took care of the track team for 4 years as Team Manager. Norris was active in his church from the time of his youth at Scarborough Maine Methodist Church, near where his parents are buried, and in the student group at University of Maine.

In 1960, upon graduation, after his ROTC training was completed, he was assigned as a Lieutenant to the Signal Corps Personnel Office for the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. At the Arlington Methodist Church in Virginia, he team taught Jr. High Sunday School, was Program Chair for the Young Adult Fellowship, and met the Christian Education Director, Margaret Beattie, whom he married and took to Maine on the condition that he would never want to live south of Washington DC. After military service he returned to Sewall and Co. in Old Town, Maine where he was a member of Orono Methodist.

Using the training he received while working at the Pentagon, Norris became the first Personnel Manager for Jackson Mammalian Research Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. While there, Norris and Margaret joined St. Saviour’s Episcopal Church where he was elected to the Vestry and served on the budget and finance committee. While living in Bar Harbor, Christopher was born on August 9, 1967.

The Thurstons then moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, “south of DC” and about which Norris said “I do not know why God did not have me born here”. It was while living in Raleigh that daughter Ellen was born on March 27, 1972.

At Hayes Barton Methodist Church in Raleigh, they were involved in some exciting adult education and worship experiences before becoming active at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church with trial worship and a sense of what church should be.

He continued to help employees with their insurance, pay, and life problems, as the Personnel Manager for Pine State Creamery, Terminal Communications Department at Wake Tech Community College and at Graftek, and Exxon Enterprises in Raleigh, North Carolina. Later, while supporting Esso Middle East-Libya, in New York City (at the Rockefeller Center) he brought engineers and their families home rather than sending them to Libya because Gaddafi had taken over 51 percent of Libyan oil fields. When that job was finished, he was employed by Merrill Lynch until the1985 crash. After a short consulting job with Seagrams, in White Plains, New York, he commuted weekly by plane, to help merge three distilleries for Ireland’s Guinness in Louisville, Kentucky. During this time, he and Margaret were invited to the Kentucky Derby with all the traditional parties and dinners. After Louisville the job continued in Stamford, Connecticut.

In 1980, the Thustons moved to Darien, Connecticut with a Methodist church conveniently located down the street. Norris and Margaret got involved there until discovering St. Francis Episcopal Church in Stamford, Connecticut, where they went the next Sunday. Christopher asked why they were not attending this church. It was with St. Francis Episcopal Church that Norris and Margaret toured Italy, including Assisi, and Norris served on the Vestry and became a Stephen Minister, increasing his skills to help others.

The family enjoyed many camping trips from Maine to Florida plus time at the beach with Margaret’s parents and summer vacations in Maine. With Friendship Force Exchange 3 Thurstons went to Germany and hosted a German couple in Darien. He and Margaret toured the western National Parks, the Canadian Rockies, Costa Rica, camped through eastern Canada, took a Baltic cruise concluding in Denmark where they found his maternal grandmother’s family of Nielsen cousins who entertained the Thurstons royally. 

The Thurstons returned to St. Mark’s in Raleigh in 1993. Norris was on Vestry again and became a part of the Men’s Lunch Bunch which he enjoyed for years. Norris had his own ministry of treating people who needed some cheer with a home-made pie, and he is remembered for his annual open invitation to people without a place to celebrate Thanksgiving to come to the Thurston home.

After hosting Danish relatives in Raleigh, they returned to Denmark for three weeks to attend a family reunion and be entertained in the homes of many Nielsen cousins. Norris had a huge family!

After April 15, 2019 Norris and Margaret enjoyed living at Magnolia Glen in Raleigh. Norris spent his time reading biographies, Smithsonian, National Geographic, and Time, keeping up with the news, and enjoying birds, treetops, clouds, and sunsets outside the windows plus the freedom from chores that living in a retirement community gave him.

Norris is survived by his loving wife of 61 years, Margaret Beattie Thurston; his son Christopher Scully-Thurston (wife, Jennifer), step-granddaughters, Hazel and Stella McLester; daughter, Ellen Thurston; sisters, Joyce Purvis and Avis Ford (both widows), many nephews and nieces. He is predeceased by his parents, Lawrence Bulan and Esther Nielsen Thurston, and brother, Ancyl.