299 Days: The Community

Chapter 97 Mrs. Roth (May 9)

Mary Anne Morrell was a tough chick. She was a retired teacher in a rural school district where teachers didn’t put up with any crap from their students. She was a sweet lady, but she didn’t wait around for people to do things for her. She hunted and fished and knew how to fix things. She loved living out at Pierce Point.

She was on guard duty with the 30-30 carbine she used for deer. She was sharing the guard shift with Paul while the guys were gone for their try out at the Grange.

Mary Anne liked Paul. He was a great father to his little daughter, Missy. She thought she noticed that Paul was losing weight, but she couldn’t tell for sure.

“Not sure why we’re even doing this,” Paul said of guard duty. “No one has come down that road in a week, well, no one who doesn’t live here.” Paul wasn’t complaining, he was just observing.

“Yeah,” Mary Anne said, “but, until things get stabilized out here, we’ll need it. For all we know, bad guys are checking us out, but are moving on to another group of houses because they see us. Besides, I’m retired. so this is fine.”

“I guess you’re right,” he said with a shrug. Paul was finishing up metal fabrication at a local trade school, but the school had closed like everything else had. “This is like a bunch of snow days, except it’s May and beautiful out. Not bad, not bad.”

John came walking down the road from their house. He had two cups of coffee and a pistol belt. He had a cowboy revolver and nice leather gun belt with cartridges on it.

“Brought you a cup of coffee, dear,” he said. He motioned the second cup to Paul, who put his hand up as if to say, “No thanks.”

“Thanks, hon,” Mary Anne said. “Everything’s quiet here.”

“Hey, I’ll take guard duty,” John said. “You should go see Mrs. Roth about those canning supplies.”

“Good idea. Will do,” Mary Anne said as she handed John the 30-30.

John wouldn’t take the 30-30. “Nah, you take that with you.” It was only a quarter mile to Mrs. Roth’s. Most husbands wouldn’t suggest that their wife walk alone in times like this, but Mary Anne was deadly with that 30-30.

“OK,” Mary Anne said. “See you in an hour or so. If I’m not back, send in the cavalry,” she said with a smile.

Mary Anne spent lots of time during her retirement visiting with people, especially those within walking distance of her house. Mrs. Roth was one of them, although she had not seen her in a few months. Mary Anne felt guilty about not visiting the old woman more, and now she was going to her and asking for something. Oh well. What use did Mrs. Roth have for the canning lids?

It was beautiful out that May morning. A perfect time for a walk. She got to Mrs. Roth’s house quickly. It was a modest little house on the land side of the road, across from a very nice waterfront cabin owned by…what was his name? He was that podiatrist from Seattle. Oh, Randy Greene.

She tried to hide her rifle as she walked up to the door. There was no need to alarm the poor old lady. She knocked on the door, and could hear someone inside slowly get up and shuffle to the door. The house smelled like a “grandma house.” Not a bad smell, just that distinctive grandma house smell.

Mrs. Roth smiled widely when she saw Mary Anne. A visitor. How nice. “Hello, Mary Anne. It’s wonderful to see you. Come in, please.” Seeing that Mary Anne had a rifle, Mrs. Roth said, “Oh, bring that in, too. No need to keep it outside. I used one of those myself back in the cowboy days when we tamed the prairies,” she said with a laugh.

Mrs. Roth wasn’t looking so well. She was very thin and moving even more slowly than usual.

They chatted for a while, and Mary Anne asked about Mrs. Roth’s health. She wouldn’t say much, brushing aside the questions. They talked about the news, keeping it very general. Mrs. Roth was well informed; she had been watching the TV news non-stop, but she didn’t seem too worried about anything.

Mary Anne asked her if she had food. Mrs. Roth answered, “My son comes once a week and brings me things. I don’t eat very much at all anymore. In fact, eating is a chore. I’m fine, but thanks for asking.”

She stared out the window. “I was a little girl during the Depression and World War II. This reminds me of those times, I hate to say. Except that then, we were all so united. We had a common cause. I don’t think people are united now. The country is too big. We’re bickering and greedy. I think this great country is over.” Mrs. Roth said that in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.

She had lived through so much that something like the Collapse, while certainly noteworthy, wasn’t the end of the world. The end of her world was coming soon due to her disease and she knew it. It put everything into context. Mrs. Roth started to remember all the people in her life who were no longer alive. She thought about them and what she would do to help them if they were still alive. She started thinking about how she could still help the people at Pierce Point. She knew she was going to heaven soon and wanted to do all the good things she could before then. “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” she whispered to herself, which was what she wanted to hear after she died.

Mary Anne told Mrs. Roth about the Matson family coming out with the Team. She had a hard time describing exactly what the Team was, so, realizing now that Mrs. Roth had lived through World War II, she said the men were kind of like soldiers. Mary Anne also told Mrs. Roth that Lisa Matson was a doctor. “I’ll ask her to come by and see you,” she said. Mrs. Roth nodded.

There was a pause. Knowing that she had come over for a reason, Mrs. Roth asked Mary Anne, “What can I do for you?”

Mary Anne was a little uncomfortable asking for something and hesitated for a moment. “Well, we have all those people living in the cabins on Over Road, like the team of young soldiers in the yellow cabin. We need to feed them. I am gardening and there are those apples everywhere that just rot each year. I am going to put up all the food I can, just like when I was a girl.”

Mrs. Roth smiled. People were going to be canning again. It was about time. All this fast food and relying on the grocery store for everything never made any sense to her.

“Oh, I have so many canning supplies I can’t keep track of them,” Mrs. Roth said. “They’re in the shed. You can have them if you’d like. I can’t stand long enough to can, anymore.”

“Oh, that would be great, Mrs. Roth,” Mary Anne said. “Just great. That’s what I came to ask you about.” Mrs. Roth was making her feel less and less guilty about asking for the canning supplies.

“Oh, certainly honey,” Mrs. Roth said. “I probably have ten cases of wide mouths and about the same number of pint jars. I have cases of regular lids. I got them fifteen years ago, but they never go bad. I thought I would can for everyone but no one wanted home canned food.” She chuckled. “They do now, though!”

Mrs. Roth’s eyes lit up. “I also have cases of those Tattler reusable canning lids. I got them in the 80s, a little while after they first came out. I never threw them out. I just knew that someone could use them. After living through the Depression, it’s hard for me to throw things out.”

Tattler lids? Mary Anne was euphoric. Unlike regular canning lids, which usually could not be reused a second time, Tattler lids could be used dozens of times. So could canning jars, making Tattler lids an absolute gold mine.

“That would be so generous, Mrs. Roth,” Mary Anne said. “We could really use them. We could also use some canning recipes. Could you share some with us?” Mary Anne knew the answer.

Mrs. Roth’s eyes lit up again. “Oh, yes, dear. I would be thrilled to share my recipes.” She realized that this would be one of the ways she could live on down on earth even after she was gone. People would talk for decades about “Mrs. Roth’s canned stew” and “Mrs. Roth’s apple butter.” She could tell Mary Anne the stories about her family and how the recipes came about. This was the best thing that had happened to her in years. She was so happy. She felt renewed. It was making the prospect of her approaching death that much easier.

“Let’s start by having you go out into the shed and inventory what I have,” Mrs. Roth said. “Then we can start on the recipes. I have a book of canning recipes and some up here,” she said, pointing to her head. “You can write them down. My mind is still sharp. I can give them to you by memory. And I might share a story or two about them.”

“That would be great,” Mary Anne said. She wanted to hear Mrs. Roth’s stories. She could tell that this was one of the best days Mrs. Roth had had in many years. And everyone would benefit from the canning recipes and, especially, from the supplies.

Mary Anne was stunned at how many canning supplies Mrs. Roth had. She had eleven cases of quart jars. With twelve in a case, that was a lot of jars; enough for many families each year. She also had nine cases of pint jars, also twelve to a case.

Mrs. Roth also had almost ten pounds of paraffin wax. Mary Anne knew that for some things, especially jams and jellies, she could melt about a quarter inch of wax on top of the jar and seal it that way, without having to use a canning lid. Wax could be reused to stretch it even further. Mrs. Roth had enough paraffin for lots and lots of jams and jellies; more than the families on Over Road probably would eat in a year.

Another prize was Mrs. Roth’s stores of pectin, which would allow Mary Anne to make jams and jellies that would gel instead of being runny. Mrs. Roth had Pomona pectin, which had a longer shelf life than regular pectin. This was important because Mrs. Roth's pectin was about fifteen years old; regular pectin would not be guaranteed to be effective over this period, but Pomona would. Also, Pomona pectin worked with lower sugar content jams and jellies and, with sugar being as scarce as it probably would be soon, that would be a good thing. Another amazing find in Mrs. Roth’s storage shed!

Mrs. Roth also had two twenty-one-quart All American canners; the ones that sealed without a rubber gasket, like the kind Mary Anne got at the farm supply store that week. Now, with Mrs. Roth’s canners, Mary Anne actually had more canners than they needed, but she could give the extras to others who needed them.

Mrs. Roth also had a well-worn copy of the Ball Blue Book of canning recipes, which would be great for people like Mary Anne and Eileen who hadn’t canned in a while.

The final prize was the boxes of Tattler canning lids. They were absolutely spectacular. Mary Anne counted the number of Tattlers. There were 365 of them. One for each day of the year, she thought.

“Mrs. Roth, you are literally saving our lives,” Mary Anne said, trying to choke back a tear.

“I know,” Mrs. Roth said with a smile. Then she got choked up, too. “But you’re saving mine. Making it meaningful here at the end. I’m more grateful to you than you are to me. Thank you so much for asking for my help. Thank you.” They both cried; joyous crying.

In that moment, Mary Anne realized that modern American culture did not value older people. That was over, though, now that modern America had collapsed. All across America that very morning, hundreds of thousands of people like Mary Anne and Mrs. Roth were probably having that same conversation. Younger people were getting skills from the older people. Older people were receiving a well-deserved purpose and pride by sharing those skills. Perhaps it was one of the few positives coming out of the whole mess.