His Life

Thaine Aydelot Norris was a very special man who lived for 78 years from 1917 to 1996.  Life began for Thaine on October 30, 1917.  He was born in a small sod house on the Colorado prairie.  On that day his father, Vernon, was 30 years old and his mother, Rubie, was 27.  Thaine was the fourth of five children.  He grew up to father five children of his own with his beloved wife Eloise.  Their family has since grown to include 16 grand children and 20 great grand children. 

As a child Thaine moved many times throughout the states of Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas.  He attended 13 different schools between 1st and 12th grade.  He graduated from High School in Natoma, Kansas in 1935 during the peak of the Great Depression.  A few years later he married his high school sweetheart, Eloise White, on October 2, 1938.  They then moved to Boulder, Colorado to start their own family. 

Thaine and Eloise moved many times between towns and cities in Colorado, Kansas, and California as they raised their five children.  Thaine worked a variety of jobs from lumber, mining, road construction, and carpentry to machining, shipbuilding, and filling station management.  In the early 1950's he finally settled on a career that would bring him considerable success--water well drilling.  He first partnered with his brother Verlin to form the "Norris Brothers Drilling Co." which soon became a major provider of water wells to customers throughout the Boulder area.  Later, Thaine's company was one of the first to master techniques for drilling in the difficult granite of the Rocky Mountains.  He eventually formed his own company, "Norris & Sons Drilling Co.", that brought further success as he provided wells to customers throughout the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. 

Thaine retired in 1983 and enjoyed his retirement years visiting with his large family.  He will always be remembered as a kind and generous man, a loving father and husband, a dreamer and an inventor, a man who came from humble beginnings to become the patriarch of a great family.  Thaine Aydelot Norris is definitive proof that there is such a thing as the American Dream--and that this dream surely does come true!