Norton Keathley was born in Brooksville, FL to a prominent family. As a young man, he graduated from the Florida Military Academy and was a page in the Florida Congress where his father, Christopher Columbus Keathley, was a representative.

Norton was later a "professor" of English at Brooksville High School and after his father's early death, ran the family store which was located downtown, directly across the street from the courthouse.

He married at a young age, and was the father of six children in Brooksville. This marriage ended in divorce. While he was "reading the law", he met Alpha Riley and soon after, they married.

They moved to Jacksonville where he worked for Railway Express and where their first child was born. Later they moved back to Alpha's home, Tampa, where they had five more children.

There, Norton went to work for the City of Tampa as Assistant Tax Assessor, a post he held until he retired.

He was a quiet man, sometimes brooding, who loved reading and classical music, traits he passed along to his children. He was such an avid reader that Alpha sometimes greeted him as he came in, arms full of books, "Oh, no, Norton! Not more books!".

After work, he often stopped for a beer at the local store and enjoyed smoking a pipe as he listened to the radio. He was a good father and was loved and respected by his friends and family (with the exception of his wife's grumpy sisters).

After a debilitating stroke, he died on July 24, 1948 at the age of sixty-nine.