Retired lab manager and photographer, Jean Calderwood Mason, age 78 of Murfreesboro, TN, passed away on July 28, 2023. She was born in Philadelphia, PA, to immigrant parents, the late William Hugh Russell Calderwood and Mary Brown Calderwood, who relocated to the U.S. from Northern Ireland in the early 1930s.
Mrs. Mason was raised in Philadelphia, and worked for the local gas company until she went on a cruise that changed her life. She met Charles F. (Bud) Mason, who worked for Holland America Cruise Lines as a sports director on her cruise to Bermuda and the Caribbean. They fell in love, married within a year, and remained married for 57 years until he passed in April 2022.
Mrs. Mason and the family moved to St. Charles, Mo., in 1969 where they later operated several successful photography businesses in the St. Louis area for more than 35 years. Mrs. Mason helped those in the St. Louis area capture memories through the 1970s-1990s with many photographed in youth sports, school pictures, senior portraits and wedding portraits. Mr. and Mrs. Mason retired to Friendship, Maine, for nearly a decade before relocating to Murfreesboro to live closer to family.
Mrs. Mason was known for her fighting spirit, exhibited by how she lived independently following a 2011 stroke that kept her confined to a wheelchair. She repeatedly beat the odds with every medical barrier she encountered. During the last year, she has bravely fought lung cancer. This did not get in the way of her living life to the fullest, including recently traveling to meet her great-grandson and seeing Alaska, which was a lifelong dream of hers.
Mrs. Mason is survived by children, Kimberly Nadine Mason McCollom and husband Don, and Charles Frederick Mason, Jr., and wife Jerri; grandchildren Jason Jay Mason and wife Mai, Connor Charles McCollom, Meghan Christine McCollom and Sydni Lynn Mason; Great-grandson Enoch Mason
A memorial service will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the Lung Cancer Foundation of America at https://lcfamerica.org/.
