Florence Mallios Norton

Florence 'Fifi' Mallios Norton, beloved mother, grandmother, sister and

aunt, passed away on Friday 9 September in Ann Arbor after a brief

battle with cancer.Born in Lafayette, Ind. to Greek immigrants Steve and Mary Mallios in

1932, she graduated from Lafayette Jefferson H.S. in 1950 and attended

Purdue University. During and after her time at Purdue, Fifi was active

in the international students' association and in Anselm Forum, a

student group dedicated to fostering understanding and friendship among

people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds. It was through

Anselm Forum that she met James Norton, whom she later married. Fifi and

her late husband Jim worked tirelessly for peace, civil rights and

liberties and social justice.The couple moved to Indianapolis in 1961, where Fifi continued her work

with a number of public interest organizations. Early on, she was a

member of the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom; Fifi was

also an active member and officer of the League of Women Voters of

Indianapolis for many years. Among many other projects, she represented

the Indianapolis LWV on the Tinder Commission, which urged sweeping

reforms in the Marion Co. Prosecutor's office and the local criminal

justice system. Later, Fifi served on the board of the Indiana state

League of Women Voters and volunteered as a registered lobbyist for the

state LWV in the Indiana Legislature. While working in the legislature,

she helped move forward measures on environmental protection and

renters' rights, and also helped lead the successful fight for Indiana

to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in 1977 (the last state to do so).

Fifi also served on the board of the Legal Services Organization of

Indianapolis - an agency providing legal services to low income

residents - including several years as vice president. Finally, Fifi was

active in political campaigns for much of her life, working as a

progressive Democrat to push her country to deliver on the promises made

in its founding documents. As late as 2008, she was phone banking for

the Obama for America campaign, and expressed her admiration for the

committed and well organized young volunteers working in the local effort.

But people were more important than causes to Fifi, and her work was

always motivated by her concern for real people - an understanding she

developed while working in the family "store" (a lunch counter

restaurant in Lafayette called the Coney Island) in her youth. She was

fiercely loyal to her family, and sacrificed greatly to care for her

husband and mother in their later illnesses. Characteristically, Fifi

was never willing to "hold her tongue" for the sake of propriety in

either her personal or professional life, though she was always loving

to her family and friends - and diplomatic when the occasion demanded.

A lifelong musician, Fifi played and appreciated both classical and jazz

piano; she accompanied student jazz musicians in high school and college

and continued to play and compose on her own for much of her life. She

once hoped to study art in college, and her house was always full of art

and music. Fifi was also an enthusiastic gardener, known especially for

her banks of indoor plants under lights around the house. She loved

natural places - especially mountains and ocean shorelines which had not

been a part of her Hoosier childhood. As a result, she fell in love with

Jim's family home in Maine, nestled along the Sandy River among

mountains in the middle of the state, and with the cold, rocky

shorelines her family would visit near Portland, Me.

Fifi Norton always explained that her purpose was to leave the world a

better place than she found it, and there can be no question that she

succeeded. Her strong legacy remains visible in the work she did, the

people she met and befriended, and the family she raised and nurtured.

Fifi was preceded in death by her husband, James A. Norton, Jr., and is

survived by her brother William Mallios (Ronna) of San Diego; her son

Steven (Lynda) and grandchildren Jamie and Alida of Ann Arbor; niece

Nancy Van de Water; and nephews Mark & Eric Van de Water, and Peter &

Seth Mallios, along with extended family in the US and Greece. A

memorial gathering will be held in Ann Arbor on Sunday, 18 September,

from 4-6pm in the Hanson Room of the Manor at Glacier Hills (1200

Earhart Rd). Another gathering will be held in Indianapolis later this

fall. In lieu of flowers, her family is requesting donations to the

American Friends Service Committee, Doctors Without Borders, or the Ann

Arbor Public Schools Education Foundation.