About Us

Trustee of the William Hermanns Trust

Kenneth E. Norton is the Trustee of The William Hermanns Trust.  For 19 years beginning in the Fall of 1970 Ken collaborated with Dr. William Hermanns, who as Emeritus Professor of San Jose State College (now University) liked to be called " Professor." Ken helped his mentor Professor Hermanns with the research and editing of the manuscripts of German and English poetry, essays and books until his death at the age of 94 on April 6,1990. William Hermanns legally adopted Ken as his son in 1977 to carry on his work after his death. They lived and traveled together in the quest to fulfill Professor Hermanns' Vow on the Battlefield of Verdun in 1916.  You can get a sense of the relationship of this mentoring in the following poem he penned to Ken in the 1970's (which Ken notes is quite a challenge to live up to!)

My Spiritual Son

I adopted you as my spiritual son.
You have existed in God's plan
before the world began.
I adopted you so that His will be done.

I'll make you a diamond,
polish its facets. It will lure
your generation,-and they will say,
"How crystal clear, how beautiful, how pure!"

This my life's purpose: to live on
unnamed, unsung, uncoffined, yet live on
as long as you feed others cheerful and meek,
and they impart my light to other generations
Unknown I shall live on —
light shines but does not speak.

                                                  William Hermanns  [P199]

Ken has continued with the archiving of the works and has transferred most into digital format in the hope that redundant storage will preserve William Hermanns' works for future generations, a worthy cause given the universality and timelessness of the principles and patterns he writes about. As the digital works are finished for publishing, they will be made available on this website, most likely as e-Books. The Trust is open to suggestions and seeks support for this project.  

Ken is available to speak by contacting the Trust (see the bottom of this page). Since discovering and becoming what Einstein called the "Cosmic Man", a person of conscience, was so important to William Hermanns, Ken gives talks and coachess on personalizing the search for the cosmic person to become cosmic and be cosmic wherever and whenever. 

You can see a photo of Professor Hermanns working with Ken in the excerpt of the San Francisco Examiner story below.  A little photo collage follows to establish for you the relationship of the Trustee in charge of this website archive and William Hermanns.  As William Hermanns acknowledged in his book Einstein and the Poet - In Search of the Cosmic Man, "Through his companionship I gained a son, he a father, and  the world my conversations with Einstein."  And, it is our intention for the world to gain William Hermanns wisdom from his other works in the archive as well.    

William Hermanns congratulating Kenneth Norton on his being awarded M.S. from Stanford University 4/3/1975




William Hermanns and Kenneth Norton, Desert Hot Springs, 1985


 
William Hermanns and Kenneth Norton, Christian and Jewish Reconcialiation, Mönchengladbach, Germany, August 1989 (8 months before William Hermanns' passing.)