Martha Mason, 71, who spent 61 years in an iron lung yet graduated from college and wrote a book about her life, died Monday at her home in Lattimore, N.C.
Mary Dalton, a professor at Wake Forest University, produced a documentary about Mason’s life in 2006. Dalton said polio left Mason paralyzed from the neck down in 1948, yet she graduated first in her class from Wake Forest in 1960.
She studied English and was well-versed in politics and literature, but it wasn’t until 1994 that voice-recognition software allowed her to write about her life. Her book, “Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung,” was published in 2003.
James W. Davant, 93, who rose from trainee to chief executive at the investment firm Paine Webber and led its transformation from a traditional brokerage partnership into an international full-service company, died April 17 in Delray Beach, Fla.
In 1964, when Davant became managing partner of Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis, it bought and sold securities for private customers, had fewer than 40 branch offices, annual revenue of $30 million and $1 million in capital funds. When he retired as chief executive in 1980, Paine Webber’s 229 branches earned annual revenue of $900 million, and its capital had reached $240 million.
