TRAILBLAZER
By Panchami Rangaraju
September 17, 1990. Anne Marie Mason remembers it was a beautiful day. She was living with her family in a townhouse in Ashburn Village. She was in her kitchen, windows open, enjoying a quiet moment while her son was at school.
All of a sudden, she heard ear-piercing shrieks outside the house. It was her neighbor three doors down.
The woman was holding her son, who was violently choking on a peach pit. Mason immediately raced out of the house and jumped into action. She performed the Heimlich maneuver several times until the child had safely coughed up the pit.
“God, that’s like the greatest feeling… when he let out the cry and I knew his airway was clear, that was just amazing,” Mason said.
Mason wasn’t just being a hero that day. It was her training kicking in. You see – Anne Marie Mason was a firefighter. And not just any firefighter. She was the first female firefighter in Ashburn’s history.
‘ATYPICAL’ CHILDHOOD
Mason grew up considering herself an “atypical” girl. She remembers being the only girl in her Boston neighborhood that was filled with boys – including her three brothers.
“They didn’t want to play Barbies. If I played Barbies, it was by myself,” Mason said. “So, I just got used to being with the guys.”
In junior high school in the 1970s, Mason did a report on what she wanted to be when she grew up – an emergency medical technician. She was swiftly called to the guidance counselor’s office and told that EMT was a “man’s job.” The guidance counselor said secretarial or nursing school would be a better fit for a woman.
“I’m Irish and I’m stubborn. And it was like – alright, I’ll show you one day,” Mason said.
FOLLOWING THE CALL
Fast forward to 1989. Mason was living in Ashburn with her husband and son. Her husband was a volunteer firefighter with the Ashburn Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department, and Mason decided to follow that childhood dream and become an EMT.
But there was a snafu – EMT class was in the spring, and she had joined in the fall. But that was just in time for fire school.
“Chief [Keith] Lawson, the chief at the time, said ‘You’re not going to hang around the firehouse and do nothing. You’re going to go to fire school,’” Mason recalled.
So off she went to fire school in Leesburg, where she says she was bitten by “the bug” and fell in love with firefighting.
She remembers taking classes in hazardous materials, trench rescue and – her favorite – automobile extrication. “Auto extrication was like a puzzle,” she said. “You don’t take the patient away from the car. You take the car away from the patient. You have to peel the vehicle away from the patient.”
Mason never did take the EMT classes in the spring.
‘BOOTS’ BREAKS BARRIERS
Ray Muth Jr., who was both a volunteer and career firefighter at the Ashburn squad, recalled that when Mason joined the department, very few females were firefighters anywhere. “Females up till then had primarily migrated towards the EMS/EMT side of things.”
While at fire school, Mason dealt with a flurry of new issues – like finding new ways to handle equipment that was designed for men.
Her coat was too long, which led her to trip over it when crawling during search and rescue. She had to order new gloves because the standard fire gloves were large. Worst of all, her boots were two sizes too big.
“Once, we ran a barn fire and the field was muddy,” Mason said. “It was just like suction… I accidentally walked out of my boots and left them there.” This led to colleagues giving her the nickname “Boots.”
PROVING HER WORTH
Both Muth and retired fire chief Lawson remember that Mason was quiet and a little reserved when she first joined and many of the male firefighters weren’t very welcoming.
“One of the biggest challenges Anne Marie faced was having to overly prove herself,’ Muth said. “She was more than capable to do the job, but would go harder and longer than the others just to prove she had what it took.”
Mason said she was able to remain strong during this challenging time by reminding herself of the good she was doing on fire calls around Ashburn – well, that plus her naturally stubborn nature.
“Her policy was kill them with kindness,” Lawson said. “If someone was not nice to her, she would fix them a batch of brownies or cookies.”
As with most things, eventually the men of the department came around and considered Mason both a friend and a valued colleague. Mason changed, too.
“She overcame her timid shy self and would go toe to toe with anyone,” Muth said. “Those ‘old timers’ that were against her in the beginning warmed up to her and became some of her biggest supporters.”
Mason recalls one time her crew was responding to a kitchen fire at a Leesburg restaurant. After helping to put out the fire, she took off her helmet. A veteran member of the Leesburg Volunteer Fire Department told her that he hadn’t known she was a woman until then. Mason took it as a compliment.
“I’m a firefighter, not a female firefighter,” Mason explained. “I’m a firefighter who happens to be female. There’s a difference.”
A QUIET LEGACY
Mason’s story wasn’t widely told. At the time, most people didn’t know the department had a woman firefighter.
“I’m very happy with my tenure and my career as a firefighter,” Mason said. “But I was a little disappointed that no one ever said, ‘You were the first. Can I pick your brain?’ No one ever really seemed to care. But we did save a lot of lives and a lot of property – so I’m very proud of that.”
She was honored a few years ago when the now-defunct House 6 Brewing in Ashburn named an Irish red ale after her – the Anne Marie.
“I was so pleased. I don’t drink and they named a beer after me,” she said with a laugh. “I have a can here that I saved, and I’ll always have it.”
Mason wound up serving 18 years with the department, including four years as its first female vice president and another four years as its first female president. She’s still a life member.
She left Ashburn in 2007 and lived in Georgia and Washington, where she worked for Microsoft. She has since moved back to Loudoun and now lives in Leesburg and continues to work for the tech company as an administrator.
Mason says that today – at 64 – she is most passionate about her grandchildren – 14 and 17 years old. They live with her son in Texas, and she’s looking forward to retiring and moving closer to them.
While Mason enjoys her current life, she admits she misses firefighting.
“Every once in a while, I’ll log in just to listen to the dispatcher on the calls,” she said. “If I’m out walking in my neighborhood, I’ll turn it on on my phone just to listen.”
Panchami Rangaraju is a junior at Lightridge High School, where she enjoys writing for her school’s journalism class. This is her first article for Ashburn Magazine.