WWII paratrooper. Schoolteacher. Never spoke about the war until he was 75.
Their life, as remembered
7 memories
1923· St. Johnsbury, Vermont
Born the year Calvin Coolidge took office
James Arthur Mason was born on a farm in Vermont at the end of a hot August. His father was a dairyman; his mother ran the farm's books. Jim was the fourth of six — two sisters who died young, three brothers who lived into their nineties. He learned to milk a cow at five and to read at seven. He said the cow came easier.
Alice died of scarlet fever later that year. Jim kept this photo on his desk for 80 years.
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“Jim was the responsible one. Always the first up. Always the last to bed. He cleaned his boots every night of his life. I think he learned that from Dad, but he made it his own.”
Robert Mason·Youngest brother
1942· Burlington Enlistment Office
Enlisted two weeks after Pearl Harbor
He was nineteen. He lied about his mother's sign-off — forged her signature on the induction form because he knew she wouldn't give it. She found out six months later when the bank mentioned his service pay. She never mentioned it to him. Not once. He found the unopened letter she'd written him in 1942 after she died in 1981, tucked into her family Bible.
Still sealed when he found it. He opened it alone at the kitchen table and didn't tell anyone what it said for years.
Shared by
“He finally showed us the letter at Thanksgiving 1999. His hands shook while he read it. It was only two lines: "I already signed. You didn't need to forge it. I love you. Don't die." He was 76 when he read it aloud for the first time.”
Helen Mason·Daughter
1944· Normandy, France
Jumped into Normandy three hours before the landings
Airborne, 101st. He was 20 years old. He would not speak about what happened on D-Day for the next 54 years. When he finally did, in a 1998 oral history recorded at the VFW hall, he talked for three hours and fourteen minutes without stopping. The only time he cried was when he described a French farmer's wife who gave him a piece of bread.
Taken two weeks before the drop. He kept this photo face-down in his desk drawer his whole life.Awarded 7 June 1944. Never worn on a dress uniform — he said the metal was too heavy.
Shared by
“Jim's 1998 oral history is one of the longest recordings in our archive. He asked us to wait until he died to share it. We did. His great-grandson transcribed the whole thing and bound it for the family. It's also catalogued with the Library of Congress Veterans History Project.”
VFW Post 573, St. Johnsbury·The veterans' post that recorded his oral history
1946· St. Johnsbury Academy
Came home and became a schoolteacher, not a farmer
His father expected him back on the farm. He chose teaching instead — a decision that caused a three-year rift. He taught 7th-grade history in the same schoolhouse he'd attended as a boy, and kept doing so for 38 years. His first-year class included a boy named Daniel, who would later become his son-in-law.
Twelve students. The blackboard was cracked. He taught from it for 38 years.
Shared by
“Mr. Mason taught me how to write a paragraph. He also taught me how to shake a man's hand. When I started dating his daughter Helen, he quietly invited me to his office and said, "I taught you well. Don't make me regret it." I was terrified. I didn't regret it either.”
Daniel Hayes·Son-in-law (former student)
1984· St. Johnsbury
Retired from teaching the day his last wartime friend died
He didn't tell the school until the following week. The obituary for his friend Walter — same 101st, same D-Day drop, same quiet years of silence after — appeared in the local paper on a Thursday. By the following Monday, Jim had turned in his resignation. He said later that teaching had been a gift Walter had given him: "Someone has to tell the young ones what's worth remembering. If I'm the last of us, I've done my share."
Shared by
“Dad kept Walter's obituary in his wallet until the day he died. It had turned to cloth from the folding. When we opened the wallet in 2011, the paper fell apart in our hands.”
Helen Mason·Daughter
2004· Utah Beach, Normandy
Returned to Normandy for the 60th anniversary
He had refused to go for the 50th. For the 60th, his grandchildren chipped in to pay for the trip. He stood on Utah Beach at 6:30am, in silence, for 47 minutes. He left a small stone on the memorial — a grey one he'd carried from a Vermont creek. Someone took a photograph from behind. It's now framed in the town library.
Utah Beach, 81 years old. Taken from behind, with permission. The stone is still there.
Shared by
“He said later it was the first time he'd slept through the night since 1944. He lived another seven years. Every one of them, he said, was a gift from that quiet stretch of sand.”
Nathan Mason·Grandson
2011· Green Mountain Hospice, Vermont
His last day — with a former student at his bedside
He was 88. The hospice room was quiet. Daniel, his son-in-law and former 7th-grade student, was there. Jim asked him to read one last passage from a history textbook — one Jim himself had used to teach from. Daniel got halfway through before Jim reached out and gently closed the book. "You learned it. That's enough." He died an hour later.
Shared by family & friends
“I still have the textbook. I read from it at his funeral. I made it all the way through this time. I think he'd have wanted to hear me finish it.”
Daniel Hayes·Son-in-law
“Dad left everything in perfect order — his papers, his medals, a handwritten letter to each grandchild. The last line of mine was: "Teach someone. Anyone. That's how I go on."”
Helen Mason·Daughter
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