A native and resident of Lubec, Maine was the oldest to die in the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed 2,983 souls just a year short of a quarter-century ago.
Robert Grant Norton, 85, was flying with his wife Jacqueline on their way to California for a wedding.
The World War II Navy veteran from Lubec, Maine, the small fishing community on the eastern tip of Washington County that borders Canada, never made it to 86.
Norton and his second wife were passengers on American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles. They had first flown from Bangor to Boston on Sept. 10.
At 8:46 a.m., September 11, 2001, they perished when terrorist ring leader Mohamed Atta flew Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Atta had spent the night of Sept. 10 in a South Portland motel with fellow hijacker Abdulaziz al-Omari before the two made a connecting flight the next morning from Portland to Boston to set up their LA-bound flight of mass murder.
The Nortons were on the plane headed for California when Atta and al-Omari took over the flight, storming the cockpit with box cutters.
The Norton couple was known in Lubec to shop at the IGA, go to the local pharmacy and attend the Congregational Christian Church.
Norton was a deacon at the church and his wife, the secretary there, used to bake pies for church sales. She often brought flowers from her garden to brighten Sunday services.
The Nortons, who had been married eight years, lived in a home overlooking Johnson Bay and Eastport.Robert Grant Norton.
The name of the oldest man to die that tragic day is among 2,983 etched in to the National September 11 Memorial in New York City’s Financial District, his wife’s included.
The names are located on bronze parapets surrounding the two memorial pools at the World Trade Center site.
Norton is also memorialized with a cenotaph at Lamson Cemetery in Lubec, on a joint stone atop the grave of his first wife, Margaret Thayer Gilmore Norton, who died in 1987.
Other 9/11 Maine victims include:
– Robert Jalbert, Lewiston, United Airlines Flight 175
– James Roux, Portland, United Airlines Flight 175
– Navy Cmdr. Robert Schlegel, Gray, Pentagon
– Stephen Ward, Gorham, World Trade Center
