Norman T. Langdon was born on March 14, 1856, in Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania, to William and Emma Langdon. His father was a farmer who owned $500 of real estate and $150 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Cherry Tree, and the family moved to Eldred, Pennsylvania, in the 1870s. By 1880, he was working as a carpenter in the oil industry.
He travelled to Russia in 1881 to work as an “overseer for a foreign oil company,” and his passport application described him as 5 feet, 11 ½ inches tall, with light hair and gray eyes. He married a woman named Agatha around 1881, and they had at least five children: Antonina, born around 1885; Vera, born around 1887; Leda, born around 1890; Olga, born around 1892; and Irena, born around 1903. He remained in Russia until around 1891, when he returned to Eldred. He moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, around 1907, and he died there on June 25, 1928.