Norm Hanscom was born February 17, 1934 in Medford, Oregon; the youngest of five children of Lloyd and Lillian (Conner) Hanscom. Norm's parents had five children together (Elton, Don, Jean, Norrene, and Norm). Norm's great-grandfather's family moved to Jackson County, Oregon, from Iowa in 1895. The family occupation was farming and ranching and Norm's father raised turkeys, horses, beef cattle and also ran a dairy. Norm and his siblings were all raised in doing farm work. For Norm, this developed into a love for ranching that would stay with him throughout his life. His family was involved with the Medford Trail Riders club in the 1940s and Norm at 14 years of age won the Champion Junior Cowboy trophy at the Rogue Vally Roundup in 1948.

Norm attended his early years of school at Agate School, a two-room schoolhouse west of where war-time Camp White would be constructed (now White City) north of Medford. Later he attended schools in Eagle Point and Central Point. He attended Medford High School, excelling in sports, was twice a state wrestling tournament finalist, and graduated in 1953. After high school he worked in various lumber mills for a few years in the Rogue Valley and Eureka, CA. He served in the U.S. Air Force as a physical trainer from 1956-1960, stationed in Oxnard, CA. Upon discharge from the military, he attended deep sea diving school, did dairy work and was also employed in a farm machinery plant for a couple of years before moving to Illinois in 1962 for 10 months and returning to Oregon to stay in the summer of 1963. He worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a timber cruiser for a short time and then worked for Medco Lumber until 1965.

In the summer of 1965 Roseburg Lumber Co. in Dillard had just completed construction of their particle board plant and was hiring new people. Norm took advantage of the opportunity and moved to Winston and worked at the particle board plant for eight years, eventually becoming a millwright there. In 1969 he married Celia (Marquez) Schwitzenberg, who owned acreage in Camas Valley and Norm, his son Mike, Celia's children Diana (Dodie) and Paul, and her nephew Mike Paramo (recently moved from southern California) became the biggest family that Norm ever had. Norm and Celia eventually bought a number of properties in Camas Valley to expand the ranching business for raising cattle and sheep.

In the mid-1970s Norm and Celia liquidated all of their property in Camas Valley and moved into the Green District outside of Roseburg into a house. But Norm quickly found out that he missed his animals so they bought property in the Happy Valley area outside of Roseburg and Winston so he could have his cows back. In 1983, they would buy property in the Roberts Creek area south of Roseburg where they could raise their cows, sheep, chickens, and watch the deer eat their roses in the flower beds around their home. They would spend the next 35 years there.

Norm left Roseburg Lumber's Dillard plant in 1973 and engaged in other businesses to support themselves for a time. He owned Roseburg Radiator Shop for a time, and he and Celia started and ran the original Los Dos Amigos restaurant in Roseburg for several years. They closed the restaurant in the late 1970s and Norm returned to millwright work at Roseburg Lumber's plywood plant in the Green District where he retired in 1999. For about the next five years afterward he became a building contractor doing remodeling and restoration work on houses.

While in Douglas County, Norm was active as a volunteer minister with Jehovah's Witnesses in the Winston and Green Valley congregations. He became one of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1967 and over the decades was involved in the local public ministry, with volunteer work with circuit assemblies and conventions of the Witnesses, and was directly involved with the construction of the Winston Kingdom Hall in the early 1990s. It was a passion of Norman to share what he learned from the Bible to all he would meet.

Norm moved to Salem in 2020 after his wife of 51 years, Celia, passed away. The following year he married Jeanette Parkton, who had also lost a husband to death a year before. Jeanette cared for Norm throughout the challenges of his health issues until he passed away peacefully at home on March 23, 2024 at 90 years of age.

Survivors include his wife, Jeanette; half-sister Melody Bramson of Eagle Point; sons Mike Hanscom (Sharon) of Salem and Kurt Hanscom of Homosassa, FL; stepdaughter Diana Brasher (Neil) of Centralia, WA; stepson Paul Hanscom (Cindy) of Rio Linda, CA; step-nephew Mike Paramo of Roseburg, grandsons Owen Hanscom (Brittney) of Keizer and Evan Hanscom of Hillsborough, NJ.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, April 6 at 12:30 p.m. at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, 975 Mildred Lane SE, Salem.