James Henry Mason IV ’43

Jim, a retired surgeon and a past president of the Atlantic County (N.J.) Medical Society, died May 18, 2007, of a ruptured aneurism at the AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City. He was 85.

Born in Atlantic City and the son of a doctor, he graduated from Atlantic City High School. At Princeton he majored in biology, joined Campus Club, and graduated magna cum laude. He earned a medical degree from Columbia University in 1946 and practiced more than 40 years at the Atlantic City Medical Center. During the Korean War he was an Army medical captain at a battalion aid station’s M.A.S.H. unit, and was surgery chief at an 8th Army hospital in Seoul. He later joined VFW Post 3361 in Ventnor City, N.J., where he lived for 73 years.

Jim was an avid stamp collector, historian, civic worker, and visual-arts student, and won many awards in those fields. He founded the Ventnor City Historical Society and Ventnor City History Museum, the latter in 2006 with materials he had spent 20 years collecting.

Survivors include his wife of 59 years, Helen Dempsey Mason; his children, James Henry Mason V and Cynthia Mason Purdie; three grandchildren; and two sisters-in-law, the widows of his two brothers.