A LIFETIME OF MEMORIES - Mary Norton
A LIFETIME OF MEMORIES
Mary Peterson Norton
I had the pleasure of meeting this Legend driver at the Mid-America Trucking Show, back in March. After just a brief conversation of discussing her background in the trucking industry and how she began her career as a second-generation driver, I was instantly intrigued with her presence. There’s a story in her eyes as she speaks with a beautiful symmetry of self-assurance, grace and wisdom.
Mary Peterson Norton of Knapp, Wisconsin has been driving a truck professionally for 40 years. She has a total of 4 million-lifetime miles, all accident-free along with a list of credentials to her name. As a member of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), she helps represent the interests of small-business trucking professionals, with a mission for all truckers to be treated equally. Mary also belongs to an association that advocates on behalf of small trucking companies, the National Association of Small Trucking Companies (NASTC). In 2014, NASTC presented Mary with their Driver of the Year Award for her outstanding performance as a professional truck driver and the passion she displays in striving to make a difference within the trucking industry.
From 1984 to 2017, Mary served on the board of the Wisconsin Association of Women Highway Safety Leaders. Upon being elected their president in 1996, she wanted her position to hedge a way for truck drivers to have a fair and vocal opinion in regard to the industry, highway safety, and the many changes that affected her trucking community. Aside from those three years as acting president, she maintained the role as treasurer of the organization.
Mary initially began her career as a solo driver, and recently returned to running over the road in the same fashion. For 30 years of her trucking career Mary ran team with her late husband, Jack Norton, gaining experience pulling tanker, dry van and refrigerated freight. In 2003, she and Jack found their place among the fleet of owner operators at Bob Erickson Trucking; a trucking company, family owned and operated, dedicated to hauling perishable goods. Established in 1950, based out of Minnesota, Mary and Jack recognized the trucks running for Bob Erickson Trucking and seized the opportunity to join their team. She continues on the same dedicated run that she shared with her husband, from Wisconsin to California. Typically out for ten days or less, the support she receives and strong relationships she shares with the staff at Bob Erickson Trucking adds to the family-oriented atmosphere that she says is the key to their company’s success.
Mary can be best described as independent, self-educated and a good listener. This is how her story unfolds…
Born in 1958, raised on a large dairy farm in Wilson, Wisconsin, Mary is the second to youngest of five children. Her family was extremely close-nit; very loving, all were helpful and given the tools of survival. She was taught how to sew, cook and garden by her mother, while she also had chores outside around the dairy cattle -which grew to include 210 Guernsey cows. Though strict, her father believed in paying his children for their work, teaching them the value of money early on. Mary says, “We all had our own money to spend. By age 14, I was buying my clothes and things that I wanted. We knew that the harder we worked, the more money we’d make. I think that’s way I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty and work hard. I loved my childhood, it has helped me become who I am today.” Her family values were a strong staple in their household as they worked the farm together, ate dinner together, and went to church together -all as a family.
Her father, a full-time farmer hauled milk part-time for their family operation. Mary recalls riding with him in the truck before she was even in grade school. She became more familiar with operating trucks over the years due to watching and learning from the passenger seat. With her chauffeur’s license at 18, she went to work for her father hauling milk from Minnesota to Iowa. Her truck route was 140 miles, three hours one way, seven days a week. She left at midnight pulling a semi tanker to a bottling company located in Des Moines, then returned home empty around 6AM the following morning.
In 1979, at the age 21 she and her husband (at the time) went over the road pulling reefer trailers. During that time, Mary learned the ropes of the business and really took advantage of those years to better her craft. A few years passed, and Mary dissolved that relationship, moved back home to her family in Wisconsin and began running as an independent owner operator. In 1985, she purchased her first truck; a brand new International Eagle double bunk cabover.
Since she was a little girl riding alongside her father, Mary knew that she wanted to travel. Driving a truck came naturally, as a teenager in high school when she drove to various events to show their cattle, she realized driving a truck was her calling. She explains how Jack always complimented her sharp instincts and judgement of character. Throughout their journey together on the road, it was her keen intuition that played a huge variable when making tough decisions.
Back before the power of technology provided us the formality of convenience in connecting with anyone anywhere at any time, Mary and Jack’s romance found a way to blossom despite the lack of communication and distance between them. During a snow storm in Wyoming the winter of 1984, Mary was trying to merge on to the highway after recovering from a breakdown on the side of the road. She noticed one particular semi-truck not switching lanes to let her enter. Clearly upset about the situation, she used the CB radio to speak her mind to the other trucker. As Mary recalls that first encounter with Jack, I can imagine the same smile of hers that I saw back in March; I hear a soft laugh on the other end of my phone line as she explains how their conversation sparked a 300-mile journey as they trailed beside each other across the state.
A couple years later, a similar situation placed the two at the same location, one more time. That day, the snow in Wyoming was impassable, as Mary and Jack both waited for the roads to reopen. Sitting idle on the side of the highway, they reconnected, in which Jack made the comment, “What do I have to do to see you? Propose to you?” Mary says that another year went by before they decided to meet up. The couple devised a method to remain in touch.
They agreed on a truck stop in Nebraska, Mary would call at noon on a certain day and leave a phone number for Jack. At five after, he called that same truck stop to retrieve her number. Afterwards they discussed their plans to visit one another and continued their courtship that way for almost a year. In September of 1985, they began running team hauling meat from Wisconsin to California. The following year the couple exchanged vows on a flatbed wagon at the King 8 Truck Stop in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Shortly after, they teamed up with a meat packing company located in Green Bay, Wisconsin. For 15 years, Mary and Jack were recognized as the company’s top producing team drivers. Over the course of their 30-year reign they discovered fun and exciting places to visit as the mileage continued from one truck to the next. In 2014, they purchased their ninth truck; a 2014 Kenworth T660 with an 86-inch studio sleeper. Just shy of celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, Jack fell ill.
2015 proved to be a difficult year for Jack and Mary. During Labor Day weekend, they took some time off due to Jack suffering from gallstones. He was redirected from a small local hospital and air lifted to a larger facility that specialized in men’s healthcare and medical services. Following a series of tests, he was instructed to return Monday after the holiday for an MRI. That Tuesday, Mary and Jack sat in their doctor’s office waiting to hear the results. Earlier that morning Mary noticed that Jack didn’t look well, he also didn’t eat much the day before. She recalls him saying, ‘I just can’t put a finger on it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’ Mary walks us through the next few moments as the doctor enters the room…
“When he came in, he put one hand on Jack’s shoulder and the other on my knee. He goes, ‘I hope you have everything in order’… the diagnosis was bile duct cancer. He proceeded to tell Jack that the type of cancer he had was very aggressive and that he had between two weeks to a month. Also, that the cancer was so far advanced that chemotherapy or any type of treatment may not help in time.
I remember facing Jack right after receiving the news, saying, well I guess we need to get busy on your bucket list. That was on Tuesday… he passed away on Friday.”
Mary contacted Jack’s son, Troy as the family prepared to say goodbye. Troy and Mary remain close, visiting with him in Utah when she passes through.
To keep truck payments from getting behind, Mary went back out on the road a month later. Returning to work was in a way therapeutic, also the love and support from friends and family helped push her day by day. She says, “It was everyone’s words of encouragement that kept me strong. After everything happened so sudden, not a day went by that someone wasn’t calling to check on me. Traveling out west for so long, we had made several friends over the years. I’m grateful for the outpouring of support I received. For anybody out there that is going through an extremely difficult time, don’t give up. Just take it one day at a time. That’s all you can do.”
One of her biggest challenges of driving solo again after many years of running team was learning to do the other half of the teamwork. For 30 years, they each had their own role of what he or she preferred to do. Jack did most of the backing up, so Mary had to become familiar with driving in reverse without a guide. Practice and patience -two principles she has relied on since she was 18 years old, pulling tankers.
Back in 1994, Mary reached out to Trucker Buddy International, a nonprofit organization that offers a program for professional truck drivers to mentor elementary students by means of letters or postcards and visits to their schools. She currently has five classrooms of students ranging from third to fourth grade at three different schools, all within an hour’s distance from where she resides. Having grown up on a dairy farm and traveled the country, with her vast knowledge of geography, agriculture and science, Mary is a perfect match for our younger generations to learn from.
“The trucking life has been good to me. It’s not for everyone, but there are so many different avenues in this business, from short haul to long haul. If you don’t want to drive there’s dispatching, recruiting, sales or accounting. I love to travel, so this is the lane I took. Even when I’m not in the truck, I’ll jump in my car or take the motorhome and go. I’ve just enjoyed being in a truck since I was a kid, driving them is what I’m good at it. Getting paid to travel and see the country makes it even better!”
-Mary Peterson Norton