Born Jul. 26, 1952
Big Rapids, Michigan
Died Mar. 26, 2024
Bakersfield, Vermont
Details of services
Friends will host a remembrance for Debra at her home in Bakersfield in August.
Debra Mason of Bakersfield, steward of her land, meditator, yoga instructor, book reader, word weaver and wool weaver, rural advocate and consultant, advocate for the elderly, bike rider, cross country skier, jazz lover, wood stacker, dog and cat aficionado, and a mean cribbage player, who spent her life humbly serving her family and neighbors, returned to the land after an all too quick recurrence of a lingering illness. She was 71.
Debra was born in the summer of 1952 and developed her love for rural growing up on her father’s dairy farm near Big Rapids, Michigan. Debra’s ancestors Jorgenson and Gunde Madsen emigrated from Denmark in 1891 and settled in an area called Daneville. Debra is the last of the Madsen (now Mason) line. Debra’s father Norm later became mayor of Big Rapids and County Commissioner for Mecosta County.
When Debra’s father Norm retired and sold the farm and the family moved into a ranch house in town, Debra thought, “uh uh, not for me.” When other teenagers were listening to the latest pop music, Debra was reading the liner notes on Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis and Bill Evans. Her first ‘light out’ was moving to Los Angeles at the age of 18 where she worked in the county library, and then made her way to Vermont amongst kindred souls. Debra returned to Michigan to care for her ailing mother Ruth and simultaneously completed a Bachelor’s Degree at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids with a focus on psychology.
After Ruth’s passing, Debra returned to Vermont. Work was abundant in restaurants in Stowe, but Debra pursued her interests in the natural environment, first with the Center for Northern Studies in Wolcott and then the School of Natural Resources at the University of Vermont, where she wrote her Master’s Thesis on the socio-economic importance of hunting, trapping and fishing for rural Vermonters. Debra worked one summer as a fisheries biologists for the U.S. Forest Service surveying high altitude lakes in the Gospel Hump Wilderness and Seven Devils Wilderness Areas in Idaho. She was a planner with the Northeast Vermont Development Association, a project director in the Northeast Kingdom with the University of Vermont Extension System, and a senior associate with Yellow Wood Associates in Saint Albans. Debra was also on the Morristown Planning Commission in the 1990’s and was an alternate on the District 5 Environmental Commission. Debra was in the inaugural class of the Vermont Leadership Institute at the Snelling Center.
Debra had the good fortune to care for her father Norm in his final days. She moved back to Big Rapids to be his primary care giver for five years, before once again returning to Vermont. Debra worked as an advocate with the Franklin Grand Isle Restorative Justice Program and then as a SASH Coordinator for seniors in the Enosburg Falls area, providing Support and Services to help elders live independently at home. Debra was known for introducing yoga into many an elder’s life and held a yoga teaching certificate from the Green River School of Yoga and was certified to teach yoga with differently abled people. She was also an expert upholsterer, restoring vintage furniture in her spare time. At the time of her death, she was on the board of NOTCH Health Care in Richford, Vermont, and was active in the Cold Hollow to Canada forestry stewardship initiative.
Debra maintained a variety of friendships throughout Northern Vermont and just over the border in Quebec. Debra’s home was famous for her annual near Ground Hog Day Book Swap gathering. She was a regular at the Montreal and Sutton Jazz Festivals, and she was beginning to run out of new roads to bike on in Northern Vermont just as her legs started to slow down. She once broke through the ice on her skis at Beaver Meadow in Mud City and cheerfully skied the three miles back to her car soaking wet.
Debra was most at home sitting. She maintained a regular Vipassana Meditation practice, and she was one of the few people whose idea of an exciting vacation was to go on a twenty-day silent meditation retreat. Debra’s meditation practice enabled her to lead a life of reflective compassion and guided her in the final days of her life.
Debra leaves behind her rescue dog Rooster, a large cat Miles and a not as large cat Marcelle.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Debra Mason.