When Natalie Beaumont returned to , New Jersey after living in Santa Barbara, California for twenty-five years, she found, lying in the dusty attic of her parents’home, a great deal of photos, clothing, letters, portraits, books, and genealogy, in short, a rich history of her family going back to before Charlemagne’s time. Her great grandfather, Nathaniel Norton and his wife Emma Read Norton were the first of four generations to live in the house.

Natalie graduated from the Dwight School for Girls in Englewood, New Jersey, as did her mother and aunts She worked briefly in Social Sevice at St Luke’s Hospital and then majored in French at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. She received her M.A. at the University of California, Santa Barbara and taught English as a Second Language and Essential Skill at Santa Barbara City college, and, after moving back to Englewood, Coordinated the Literacy Program at the Englewood Library. wile caring for her father. She has one son, Anthony, an assistant principal and athletic director in a high school in Temecula, California