The house next door to us has been unoccupied for about 20 years. Watching it fall slowly into disrepair, we joked about the new tenants each time a squirrel moved in through the kitchen window, the groundhog dug a new tunnel under the foundation, the blue jays built another nest in the chimney. (At least we think they were jays.)

Two days ago, an enormous crane (the machine kind) arrived on the lawn, and knocked the house down. Noise and dust and beepings, oh my–although the crane was VERY careful to contain everything, I hasten to add. Never a minute’s worry.

We saw a few cars drive slowly by. One elderly couple sat across the street for several minutes watching, bittersweet looks on their faces. We were told the people who owned the house had died decades ago; maybe they knew them.

On the evening of the second day, with nothing remaining but a whole lot of aluminum siding and the concrete pad of the porch, Jack and I wandered over to … I don’t know. Because we were bored and curious and wanted to pay our respects all at the same time?

Where the kitchen had stood was quickly evident; apparently all the cupboards hadn’t been cleared because some ancient spice canisters, the kind one buys in a store, were lying about. Some were things like Boric Acid and Cream of Tartar.

Since broken glass was everywhere, I picked up the home canning jar carefully, expecting it to be cracked and fall apart in my hand. But it was whole. Further, it was still sealed. Green beans waited expectantly inside for someone to eat them.

Another jar contained pickles. I knew–because I am that nerd–that the Kerr jar was from the 1950s and the Mason jar predated 1962. Valuable enough to a collector, but not big deal money items on eBay. I took the two jars home and started to wipe off the decades of dust clinging to them, then thought better of it.

Instead I placed them out of the sunlight in a corner of my canning closet. They don’t touch anything, no asbestos dust poisoning happening here. But they sit there, a connection to she who ruled that house, what 30, 40 years ago?

When did she can them? Who did she hope would sit at the table and eat them with her? Why were they never eaten?

One could feel melancholic about women’s work and the march of time and aging, but honestly I feel inspired. We who enjoy it have been canning since that French baker won Napoleon’s prize money (Google it) and so many connections still exist to those early days. We honor each other’s work.

We know what kind of sweat equity goes into making sweet pickles. We believe in the long flow of tradition-with-improvements. When we got better, safer lids we used them instead of wax. When we got freedom-infringing advisories from agencies influenced by lobby money, we ignored them and canned milk, meat, and greens. We learned what tasted good, and why, and how to make it taste better for the long haul. All while that carrying stream of tradition skipped generations of children and rebirthed itself in new eddies of panic as the pandemic spread fear of shortages. Kinda like World War II, the last time canning surged. (For some reason, it skipped the sixties. Maybe not enough dancing involved.)

It makes me feel good, rescuing those two jars from a fate of being ignored for eternity. I don’t know her name, but I know she was good. The pickles are beautiful. The green beans are evenly layered with perfect head space. And the jars are sealed despite having a house pulled down on top of them.

I’ll never know her name. But I feel connected to her, and that’s enough.