The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Retirement renewed passion for farming
As assembly plant worker, he was known for speed.
Albert Mason grew up on a tobacco farm in Tifton. He was looking forward to a life of farming as an adult, until the drought of 1954 wiped out the crops on the small Brookfield farm he and his wife started.
“I’m told he had what they’d call a good crop that year,” said his son James A. “Buddy” Mason Jr., of Conyers. “So, he went looking for employment that would allow him to provide for his family.”
Albert Mason moved his family from Brookfield, just east of Tifton, to Stone Mountain and he took a job at the Lakewood General Motors assembly plant. In his 37 years at the plant, Mason earned the nickname “Speedy” for the rapid pace at which he kept the assembly lines stocked, his son said. The highlight of his career came a few years before he retired, when he, his wife and his only daughter moved from Stone Mountain to Conyers, where he was able to get back to farming.
“One of my favorite memories was coming home from work and seeing him kneeling in his garden,” Vickie Root said of her father. “My driveway runs right next to where his garden is, and no matter how hot it was, or how late it was, he was always out there pulling weeds because he didn’t want weeds growing in his garden.”
James Albert Mason, of Conyers, died Sunday from complications of a number of illnesses. He was 82.
A funeral is planned for 2 p.m. today at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, Rockdale County. Burial will follow in the church cemetery. Tim Stewart Funeral Home, Loganville, is in charge of arrangements.
In Albert Mason’s Conyers garden, there were reminders of his past, Root said. No matter what other fruits and vegetables he planted, there would always be a row of tobacco and one of cotton.
“The tobacco was to remind him he grew up on a tobacco farm and the cotton was to remind my mama that she grew up on a cotton farm,” their daughter said. “They never did anything with it but watch it grow, but it was always there.”
As the produce grew, however, Mason wouldn’t hesitate to share the food with anyone who might be in need, his son and daughter said.
“He was famous for getting a few Publix grocery bags together, filling them up with food from the garden and dropping them off on somebody’s porch,” Root said. “And sometimes he’d stay and visit with them for a while.”
Buddy Mason said since his father’s illness kept him out of the garden recently, he decided to take it up.
“I planted a good bit of corn, beans, tomatoes, squash and several other kinds of vegetables this year,” he said. “I know he appreciated it.”
In addition to his son and daughter, Mason is survived by his wife of 63 years, Dorothy “Dot” Partin Mason of Conyers; a second son, John Randall “Randy” Mason of Grayson; brothers, Charles Ernest Mason of Henagar, Ala.; the Rev. George Anderson Mason of Oxford; sister, Eddie Mae House of Omega; seven grandsons; three stepgrandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.