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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend November 8, 2005 Memorial service to be held for Manor elder By ANITA BURKE Mail Tribune An Ashland memorial service is scheduled to remember a former head librarian, weaver and rose gardener who called the Rogue Valley Manor home longer than any other resident. Cora Mason died Thursday at age 101 in the care center of retirement home where she had lived for 33 years, said her niece Marilee Titus, of Tacoma. She headed libraries in Ashland and India before retiring to the hilltop retirement community in 1972, where she organized and expanded its library, grew roses and wove shawls and table runners on her loom. "She was a humanitarian in the way she approached the library and serving the community," said Bob Wilson, another former Ashland librarian who recorded an oral history of Mason’s life. Mason was born July 27, 1904, in Knoxville, Tenn., and moved to Ashland with her family in 1921. She earned her degree from Oregon State University and went to work at the Ashland Public Library in 1934. After 30 years there, she retired as head librarian and went to India under the auspices of the Methodist Church’s Board of Missions to work in a library in a women’s college. She spent seven years in India before returning to the Rogue Valley. Advertisement "She never married," said her nephew Dean Mason of Hermiston. "I think that’s why she put so much of herself into her work." Mason cared for her mother for many years in a little house on Main Street in Ashland. The two both loved to garden. Mason sang in the choir at the Methodist church and never missed a Lithia Park performance by the Ashland City Band. "Except for when she was in India, she never missed a summer since she was 15 or 16," Titus said. The Manor bused residents to the summer concerts. Titus and Dean Mason fondly recalled the storytimes their aunt presented Saturday mornings at the Ashland library. "The room would just be packed and she would hold everyone entranced," Titus said. "But it was summer and hot and sometimes the little boys would get fidgety. She was a good disciplinarian, too. She could just give them that look." Mason and Wilson, who started working at the Ashland library in the 1970s, battled some of the same problems at the old library — flooding in the basement and people stealing books. "Some things never change," he said. As a retired librarian, Mason couldn’t stay away from the books, and friends at the Manor asked her to help at the library there. She organized and built up the collection, but when officials named the library after her, she asked them to remove her name because others also had worked on the project. At her request they dubbed it simply the Rogue Valley Manor library. "She wasn’t one to brag," Dean Mason said. When Mason moved to the Manor, she wanted a garden and was offered a large plot of roses that a previous resident had started. She tended it for decades, filling it with her favorite tea roses. She set up a loom in the Manor’s craft room and wove table runners, shawls and even rugs. "She was a master weaver," Wilson said. "I remember visiting friends there and seeing her still at her loom at 11, 11:30 one night finishing a project for an upcoming show. And she was well into her 90s then." Mason is survived by two nephews, Dean and Wes Mason, and a niece, Titus. The memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. Nov. 26 at First United Methodist Church, 175 N. Main St., Ashland. Pastor Michael Powell will officiate. Reach reporter Anita Burke at 776-4485, or e-mail Memorial service to be held for Manor elder ">[email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback www.bingo.com Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker dvd-r Distance Education Computer Security Ztech Media Hosting Sports Equipment Online Casino Salvia Divinorum Student Loans tcg student loan consolidation Online Pharmacy Online Casino Reviews Myspace Home Equity Loans Windermere Van Vleet Rogue Valley Travel Discount Hotel Reservations Southern Oregon Loans Online Casino News Casino Gambling Sites Budget Website Templates Online Bingo Entertainment Guide Advertisement s