Returning Home

Norm lines up a shot while playing pool at the Winifred Bar. Norm holds a display of family photographs at the Winifred Museum.

With success at AAON assured, Norm began to reflect on his life. He thought first of Winifred and the character of the people who had helped him as a child.

By the 1990s, the Milwaukee Road had long since shuttered its branch line to town, and Winifred's population had slumped to 150. The grain elevators at the edge of town were no longer in operation. The few businesses that remained served a handful of ranching families that hung on. Norm feared the Winifred of his youth might disappear.

Norm helped fund a project to fence Winifred's cemetery and then renovated the town swimming pool. He put up funds to develop a community center to house city hall, the post office, fire department and town museum.

Norm built homes for Winifred school teachers and motorized bleachers for the school gym. And he built a 12-bedroom house for Oskie's granddaughter Mary and her husband, Gordon Wichman, who, over the years, fostered more than 50 children from broken homes.