When Norman Edmund Potter was born on 26 July 1887, in Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, his father, Robert Nelson Potter, was 21 and his mother, Lavina Ellen Freeman, was 21. He married Ellen A Johnson on 20 May 1922, in Seattle, King, Washington, United States. They were the parents of at least 1 son. He lived in Long Lake Township, Crow Wing, Minnesota, United States for about 20 years and The Dalles, Wasco, Oregon, United States in 1930. He registered for military service in 1919. He died on 30 June 1966, in Seaside, Clatsop, Oregon, United States, at the age of 78, and was buried in Willamette National Cemetery, Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, United States.