Her home on Spring Street became what sources describe as a gathering place and an open house. Her great-granddaughter Gladys Owens Smith later transmitted a teaching attributed to Mason: “If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in.” This formulation has circulated widely as a summary of her philosophy, and while it is a family transmission rather than a contemporaneous document, it is consistent with the pattern of her actions.
She was known in the community as “Auntie Mason” and “Grandma Mason” — honorifics that signal the affectionate community role she occupied rather than a formal position. These are the kinds of titles that people earn through sustained, personal, local care over decades, the kind that do not appear in official records but that are recorded in how people talk about someone after they are gone.
## The Owens Family and the Next Generation
One of the lasting legacies of Biddy Mason’s freedom was what her children and grandchildren were able to build on its foundation. Her daughter Ellen married Charles Owens, the son of Robert and Minnie Owens, whose family had made the legal intervention that helped free her mother. This marriage linked two families who were among the most significant in early Black Los Angeles.
Charles Owens became a successful businessman. His son Robert Curry Owens — Biddy Mason’s grandson — was described as the wealthiest Black man in Los Angeles by the turn of the twentieth century. He accumulated substantial real estate and business holdings, building on foundations laid by both sides of his family.