Romulus Armistead Mason

In addition to his parents, he was predeceased by his brothers Hugh Archibald Mason of Springfield, MO, Homer Livingston Mason, and sister Margaret Chellie Mason both of Greensboro, NC, and sister Virginia Dare Mason Hixon, of Fayetteville, NC. He is survived by his sister Mary Ann Mason Henline, of Huntersville, NC; nieces Deborah Mason Wuthnow, Dawn Henline Moore, Laura Mason Altizer, Theresa Hess Afrank, Amy Mason Hunter, and Kristina Henline Bell; nephews David Mason, Matthew Mason, and Lee Nelson; numerous great nieces and nephews; and by his beloved first cousin Peggy Mason Shepard.

Shortly after his birth, his parents relocated back to the Fayetteville area of North Carolina which had been home to both sides of his family dating back to the mid-1700s. Rom was reared in Fayetteville and graduated from Fayetteville Senior High School in 1957, at the age of sixteen. Following an academically forgettable year at UNC-Chapel Hill and various dead-end jobs, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1959. He was stationed in West Germany for two years and used the opportunity to travel throughout Europe, including the divided city of Berlin and the site of the 1936 Olympic Games where Jesse Owens had enshrined himself in sports history.

Following completion of his three-year enlistment with an Honorable Discharge in 1962, he returned to Fayetteville and graduated from Methodist College in 1966.

He enjoyed a career of thirty-three years in casualty insurance claims, initially with Aetna Life & Casualty, which involved numerous promotional transfers across six states. After serving as the Claims Manager in Aetna’s Seattle, WA, office and their Sacramento, CA, office, he returned to Seattle in 1988 taking a position with a John Hancock subsidiary, from which he retired in 1999.

Having managed to achieve his early childhood goals of learning to read and write, he had a long-time aversion to setting other goals for fear of pressing fate. It was only after a Hawaiian vacation in 1986 realizing only one state remained, that he set a goal to visit all fifty states at least once. That last state, and only item on his bucket list, was achieved in February 1990, when he participated in the 1990 Winter Al-Can Road Rally, a driving odyssey which lasted thirteen days and covered 2600 miles from Seattle to north of the Arctic Circle and back to Harrison Hot Springs, BC, Canada. His later reflection on the experience was that it was an example of the gigantic lapse of sanity that everyone should allow themselves at least once in a lifetime.

He was an avid reader and, at his passing, left a home library of only some 800 books due to space restrictions. Over his lifetime he had read and given away several thousand more.

A private memorial will be held at a later date. Following cremation, his ashes will be scattered, as he wanted his carbon atoms back in circulation without delay. In lieu of flowers, or donations, his wish was that you spend your money on your friends, and his hope was that you have some of both. Memories and condolences to the family may be shared on the website of Dunbar Funeral Home – Dutch Fork Chapel, Irmo, South Carolina.