Norma Coreen Robinson
Married Name: Norma Robinson Kuzara
Norma Robinson was born July 9, 1921 in Parker, Idaho. Her mother liked the actress Norma Shearer, so that's how Norma was named.
As a young girl, Norma and her family lived in Jackson Hole and in Sheridan Wyoming. Norma attended school in Sheridan and remembers that the first three grades were in a one-room country school. As a student she was very active in clubs and she worked in the school office. She was a "twirler" and very popular.
Norma's Fifteenth Birthday

Her ambition was to be a secretary and in those days, they were well-paid. In high school she was very good at typing and shorthand. Her parents, Edna and Oliver were very strict about everything. You never talked back. You weren't allowed to voice your opinions. Children were seen, not heard. But she says they were good parents. Her father, Oliver Robinson taught her honesty and integrity---that your "word is your bond." Her mother taught her to value truth. She told her, "that says it all...if you tell the truth it'll save you every time." Norma had a very good relationship with her father even though he was travelling and away from the family extensively when he was a trapper for the U.S. government. Norma says in the early days, they would camp in a tent and wait for him to come back from his trapping. Norma says about her father that "he was a total man...he knew exactly who he was." Norma admired and enjoyed her mother's musical talent. She remembers that she would play the piano and organ, and sing all the time. 

Growing up, Norma's favorite song was "Stardust" and her favorite movie was "It Happened One Night." She loved Clark Gable and Ingrid Bergman. As a young girl, her family would listen to "The Shadow Knows" and "Amos and Andy" on the radio. Norma says of her best friend growing up, "Mary Kennedy---I liked her. We did everything together. She was a real tom-boy. She did all kinds of crazy things."
Norma's teenage years were very hectic. She was doing something all the time. Norma says, "we were more mature as young people than they are now. I made my own way during the summers. I hitch hiked once from Saint Anthony to Butte Montana. I never told my mother. The man who picked me up was gorgeous! He was tall, dark and treated me like a queen. I never saw him again. I could have but I didn't."
 
Norma's Graduation, 1940
Sheridan High School, Sheridan Wyoming
After high school, she worked as a secretary. She went to Heiman's Business School. She said she was so good, that she only had to go six months. On weekends she cleaned house and washed the laundry. Norma says: "We worked 48 hours a week in those days. You really only had Sunday off. In the 50's we started having weekends. The style was to wear wide padded shoulders and long skirts. Women wore high heels with straps and gartered nylons with seams. You always had to look and see if your seams were straight--a real pain."
 
Norma, Age 22
Norma started supervised dating at 16. She met her future husband, George Kuzara in high school in the band. He played the saxophone and Norma was a "twirler." Their first date was in the summer of 1939. They played "Run, Sheep, Run." They went to dances that summer in Story, Wyoming. They loved to close dance, ballroom dance, and do the Jitterbug. He was younger than Norma by nearly three years but he was good looking and had a wry sense of humor.
They dated about eight months before they decided to marry. Norma's parents said they gave it six months. They didn't want her to marry him because he was lower class, working in the mines and they considered themselves as "high society." Norma's parents sent her Denver in a blizzard in January 1942 to get her away from George. He saved up bus money and came down to Denver in March. They eloped on March 14, 1942. He he went back to Sheridan to finish high school. He worked through the summer and then enlisted in the Army at the beginning of World War II. She followed him wherever he went.
After the Army, George and Norma settled down in Boulder, Colorado and had their first child, George Jr. on February 17, 1945.

 
Nearly ten years later, on May 11, 1954, George and Norma welcomed their first girl, Lisa, and their last child. Norma worked on and off as a secretary until she retired as a home-maker at the age of 55. Norma loved a clean house, and taking care of her children. In her young years, she was well known for canning choke-cherry jelly, and making chocolate cake from scratch. She was an avid water skiier with her family, and enjoyed camping when her children were young.
As a young mother, Norma "adopted" four children on a farm in Colorado who's mother had unexpectedly passed. She cooked and cleaned, and just took over as their mother and continued in a life-long friendship. She was very generous at "mothering" anyone who happened to need her and she loved children (and they loved her). Her grandchildren, Mike, Paul and Brian Kuzara, all have stories to tell about how she "mothered" them in very unique and special ways. Her grand-daughter by marriage, Kara, and her great-grandson Joshua spent time with her as well in her later years.
 
She's well known for her love of antiques. She could identify the type of wood with one glance, and could see the potential in every piece of furniture. She spent many happy hours stripping, sanding, gluing, staining, and sealing a variety of pieces of furniture. She especially loved to find forgotten pieces of furniture that were ruined by careless care and layers of paint, and transform them into show-pieces of exceptional natural beauty.
In her later years, Norma enjoyed watching TV. She especially loved watching tennis, Oprah and the Discovery channels. She adored the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin. She was 84 when she died at her own hands. She had spoken on a number of occasions through the years about how much she didn't want to go through the "hell" of old-age. We all believe that she refused, in that stubborn way of hers, to become a burden to anyone, and to lose her independence when she at last faced the prospect of serious illness. She had just visited the doctor following a suspected stroke. She left us a short letter telling us all to take care of each other.

This was a picture of Norma her daughter Lisa took in 1992 in the acreage of Wyoming where she and George liked to spend the summers in the years following their retirement. Those were very happy, peaceful years that she always talked about so fondly.  
She would be smiling and very pleased if she knew her family would be remembering her like this :)
Norma, June, Dean and Rawl, 1926