Matilda Lois Schafer Mason

A wake for Matilda Lois Schafer Mason, who died instantly in a four-vehicle crash Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006, will be Sunday, Nov. 5, between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. at her home in Sorrento, with a memorial service to follow later in the week. Lois was born Dec. 28, 1943, in Elizabeth, N.J. She was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend, who chose to celebrate each day on Earth as a gift from God. Upon graduation from Southwest High School in Miami, in 1961, she married Gerald Eugene Mason, her high school sweetheart. Always the role model for high moral and ethical values, she was a church choir member, children's choir director and interpreter on a medical mission trip to Costa Rica. She often would give away the clothes off her body and the shoes from her feet when on mission trips to Belize and Costa Rica. She loved to sing, play the piano, sew, travel and read her Bible. She taught all of her children at a very early age to play piano, read and even drive (long before it was legal for them to get behind the wheel). Her infectious enthusiasm for living life in the moment will be missed by her husband, Jerry. Her children, Cheryl, Mary Lynn and Brett, will miss the way she always seemed to have time and was so very happy to see each of them. Her granddaughters, Rachel Green, Kristine Ashby and Isabelle Baliles, will always carry the light of her wisdom, grace and praise. Also surviving are four sisters, Gloria Bindewald, Irene Olsen, Charlotte Larsen and Janet Keeler, her twin; one brother, Edward Schafer; three sisters-in-law, Ann, Thelma and Lorraine Schafer; one brother-in-law, Ole Oleson; and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins.