Roll Call Tribute

Douglass G. Norvell 

December 1, 1938 - November 28, 2023 

Douglass G. Norvell, PhD, of Nauvoo, Illinois passed away peacefully at his home near Nauvoo on Tuesday, November 28, 2023.

Dr. Norvell was born December 1, 1938 in Port Arthur, Texas to Randolph Graham Norvell and Estelle Deason Norvell. He married his college sweetheart, Virginia McFarland, in 1964. They later divorced, and in 1994 Dr. Norvell married Mary Bradley Sartorius.

Preceding him in death was his sister Diane Norvell Bates.

He is survived by his wife Mary of Nauvoo, two sons, Scott Norvell of New York and Stuart Norvell of Little Rock, Arkansas; his daughter, Cynthia Cook Conrow of Charlotte, North Carolina; a stepdaughter, Molly Sartorius of Columbia, Missouri; stepson Nathan Sartorius of Harker Heights, Texas; and a daughter-in-law, Shelley Emling, also of New York. He was blessed with four grandchildren and six step grandchildren — Chris, Ben, and Olivia Norvell, Nathan Conrow, Isaiah, Jazmyne, and Kingsley Sartorius, and Aiden, Miles, and Madeline Poehlein.

Dr. Norvell attended Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur, Texas, graduating in 1956. After high school, he served in the United States Marine Corps in 1957, eight months on active duty and in the reserves until he was honorably discharged in 1964. While in the reserves, Norvell trained with the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare training command, and with the Fleet Marine Force.

After his training in the Marine Corps, Dr. Norvell attended Mexico City College, where he lived at a pension that was a gathering place for members of the Beat Generation such as Jack Kerouac, Williams Boroughs, and Allen Ginsburg. Many residents of the boarding house — Protasio Tagle # 48, Tacubaya — later moved to San Francisco and formed the nucleus of the Haight-Ashbury district in the early 1960s.

After Mexico, he worked as a Merchant Mariner on the SS Brazos and the SS Trinity, earning the rank of Bull Wiper and a Fireman-Oiler license. After two years at sea he came ashore, and worked as a dispatcher for the Sabine Pilots while simultaneously attending Lamar Tech. He graduated from Lamar with a bachelor’s degree in History and Economics in 1964.

After graduation, Dr. Norvell moved to Las Vegas where he worked as a croupier for Consolidated Casino Corporation. Finding the gambling life unfulfilling, he left Las Vegas after a short time and proceeded to Texas A&M University to pursue a graduate degree in economics.

During his first semester he took a course called Economics of Agriculture in Developing Areas taught by Professor John G. McNeely, who subsequently offered him a paid research position that turned into a Ford Foundation Fellowship. He was awarded a PhD by Texas A&M, the only person in his family to be awarded one.

While in graduate school, Dr. Norvell did field research for his master’s and doctoral degrees in the Dominican Republic. He excelled in academic pursuits, publishing scholarly articles such journals as Social and Economic Studies, Caribbean Studies and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

In 1970, Dr. Norvell and his young family moved to Afghanistan as a State Department consultant to provide support to the Minister of Agriculture. While in Afghanistan, Dr. Norvell studied the traditional markets and produced two manuscripts now housed in the Library of Congress — the only works in the library dealing with the Afghan markets.

In 1973, after Afghanistan’s king was overthrown, Dr. Norvell and his family moved to Managua, Nicaragua where he taught Agribusiness Management at INCAE, often cited as the best business school in Latin America, and Ms. Norvell ran a cooperative daycare program. While in Nicaragua, Dr. Norvell consulted to the U.S. Agency for Economic Development and the Secretariat for the Economic Integration of Central America.

After INCAE, Norvell went to The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. where he taught Marketing and developed an outreach program in marina management. A nationally recognized voice in the financial management of the rapidly growing marina industry, Dr. Norvell served as a consultant to the City of Miami, the National Marine Manufacturers Association and dozens of private developers. Dr. Norvell wrote a number of manuscripts about marinas that are in the National Agricultural Library.

Maintaining his interest in agriculture, Dr. Norvell consulted to the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1985. Working in the Peruvian Amazon, he developed alternative crops to substitute for the cultivation of the coca leaves used to produce cocaine. Shortly after his departure, the compound where Dr. Norvell worked in Aucayacu, Peru was attacked by mercenaries hired by the Cocaine cartels.

In 1994, Dr. Norvell and his first wife, Virginia, amicably divorced and he married Mary Kathleen Bradley, who taught and retired from the Dallas City Elementary School.

Dr. Norvell’s last teaching post was at Western Illinois University, where he taught marketing and international business until he retired in 1994. At Western, Dr. Norvell and Dr. Robert Morey recognized and documented what they termed “ethnodomination,” or the predominance of particular ethnic groups in selected industries. Following their lead, numerous scholars documented, analyzed and reported on instances of ethnodomination worldwide. Also while at Western, Dr. Norvell joined with Robert Branson to publish the first book, published by McGraw Hill, to apply strategic marketing principles to agribusinesses.

In active retirement, Dr. Norvell continued to work as an expert witness and consultant. Also, he received two Fulbright Scholar Awards — one at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario and another at the Victor Morey Art Institute in Iquitos, Peru. In Peru, he lectured at the Peruvian War College on using public markets as intelligence sources.

Farther into retirement, Norvell and his wife Mary settled in Nauvoo, Illinois where they both enjoyed restoration of a historic stone farmhouse and tending to their garden, orchard and beloved pets, Wookie, a sheep dog, and Dirty Face, Pretty Face and Jake, all barn cats.

Cremation has been entrusted to Schmitz-Banks & Beals Funeral Home of Nauvoo.

A graveside service will be held at 2:00 p.m. Monday, December 18, 2023 at Calvary Cemetery in Carthage, Illinois, with Fr. Tony Trosley officiating. Military Rites will be presented by the Hancock County Honor Guard.

A memorial fund has been established for the Nauvoo Ambulance Service or PAW Animal Shelter. To leave an online condolence for the family, please visit Dr. Norvell’s obituary at sbbfuneralhome.com.