Dr. John C. Norton Jr., a retired Baltimore obstetrician and gynecologist who during his 46-year career delivered an estimated 7,000 babies, died Monday of complications from a stroke at his Catonsville home. He was 91.
Dr. Norton, whose father was a Baltimore obstetrician and gynecologist, was born in Baltimore and raised on Montrose Avenue in Catonsville.
By the time he was 9 years old, Dr. Norton had settled on a medical career.
"It was a lofty dream, considering he spent two years of his early age sick with rheumatic fever," wrote Suzanne M. Dieringer, a daughter who lives in Davidsonville, in a eulogy for her father. "Even his own father, a physician, never thought he'd reach college age."
He was a 1935 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Loyola College in 1940.
After graduating from Georgetown Medical School in 1943, he served his internship and trained as a resident at Bon Secours Hospital under Dr. Emil Novak, a well-known Baltimore gynecologist.
Dr. Norton established a private practice as a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology at an office on Edmondson Avenue. In the late 1960s, he was elected president of the medical and dental staff at Bon Secours Hospital and also practiced at St. Agnes Hospital.
He later moved to a Baltimore National Pike office and then to Frederick Road, where he worked until retiring in 1992.
Dr. Norton's daily routine was to see patients from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and then go home for dinner with his family at 6 p.m. He would return an hour later to his office, where he saw patients until 9 p.m.
"I first worked with him in the operating room at Bon Secours and later for 13 years in his office. He was very patient and compassionate above all else when it came to the patients," said Theresa G. Zeitler, yesterday.
"Even though he worked long hours and in addition to making house calls in the early years and delivering babies, he always spent quality time with his patients and never rushed them," she said. "He delivered more than 7,000 babies through the years, and if a mother had a stillborn, he was right there to comfort the parents," she said.
"On a personal note, I had had three miscarriages. He helped me, and if I hadn't gone to him, I wouldn't have had my two children," Mrs. Zeitler said.
The Rev. Christopher Whatley is pastor of St. Mark Roman Catholic Church in Catonsville where Dr. Norton was a communicant.
