Born July 26, 1952
Great Rapids, Michigan
Deceased March 26, 2024
Bakersfield, Vermont
Service detailsyes
Friends will host a memorial for Debra at her Bakersfield home in August.
Debra Mason of Bakersfield, steward of her land, meditator, yoga instructor, book reader, word and wool knitter, rural advocate and consultant, senior advocate, cyclist, cross-country skier, jazz lover, stacker wood, dog and cat hobbyist and poor cribbage player, who spent her life humbly serving her family and neighbors, returned to earth after a too-rapid recurrence of a persistent illness. She was 71 years old.
Debra was born in the summer of 1952 and developed her love of the countryside while 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 a Mecosta County commissioner.
When Debra’s father Norm retired and sold the farm and the family moved to a ranch in town, Debra thought, “Uh, uh, not for me.” While other teenagers were listening to the latest pop music, Debra was reading the notes on Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis and Bill Evans. Her first outing was moving to Los Angeles at the age of 18, where she worked at the county library and then headed to Vermont among like-minded 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 concentration in psychology.
After Ruth passed away, Debra returned to Vermont. Restaurant work was plentiful in Stowe, but Debra pursued her interests in the natural environment, first at the Center for Northern Studies in Wolcott and then at the University of Vermont School of Natural Resources, where she wrote her master’s thesis on the sociology. The economic importance of hunting, trapping and fishing to rural Vermonters. Debra worked one summer as a fisheries biologist for the U.S. Forest Service surveying high-elevation lakes in the Gospel Hump and Seven Devils Wilderness Areas in Idaho. She is a former planner for the Northeast Vermont Development Association, project director in the Northeast Kingdom of the University of Vermont Extension System, and senior associate at Yellow Wood Associates in Saint Albans. Debra was also on the Morristown Planning Commission in the 1990s 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 was fortunate to care for her father Norm in his final days. She returned to Big Rapids to be his primary caregiver for five years, before returning to Vermont again. Debra worked as an advocate with the Franklin Grand Isle Restorative Justice Program and then as a Senior SASH Coordinator in the Enosburg Falls area, providing support and services to help seniors live independently at home. Debra was known for introducing yoga into the lives of many seniors and she had a yoga teaching certificate from Green River Yoga School and was certified to teach yoga with the differently abled. She was also an expert upholsterer and restored antique furniture in her spare time. At the time of her death, she was on the board of directors of NOTCH Health Care in Richford, Vermont, and was actively involved in the Cold Hollow to Canada forest management initiative.
Debra maintained a variety of friendships throughout northern Vermont and just across the border in Quebec. Debra’s house was famous for its annual book exchange gathering around Groundhog Day. She was a regular at the Montreal and Sutton jazz festivals, and she was starting to run out of new roads to ride in northern Vermont just as her legs were starting to slow down. She once broke the ice on her skis at Beaver Meadow in Mud City and happily skied the three miles back to her soaked car.
Debra felt more comfortable sitting at home. 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 live a life of reflective compassion, and she guided her in the final days of her life.
Debra leaves behind her rescue dog, Rooster, a big cat, Miles, and a not-so-big cat, Marcelle.
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