Part 3 — Under The Furnace
I set my wrench down because the compartment below the burner was lined with rows of old Mason jars, wrapped in newspaper and stacked like a pantry. Each one had a paper label tied on with string.
I counted forty-one jars. Every label held a surname in careful blue pencil. Lambert. Ostrowski. Mayfield. Beneath each name, a number.
The young couple, Tara and Josh, knelt on the hall floor beside me. Josh unscrewed the first lid with two fingers, as if afraid of a snake. Inside was a roll of bills and a few silver coins wrapped in a handkerchief.
We found a ledger at the very bottom, tied with ribbon. The first page was dated March 1933. The Sistersville bank had closed its doors that month, and a retired grocer named Elias Hollis had written, in a firm hand: These are your savings. I am only keeping them dry.
When the bank failed, he had gone door to door. He took in what folks had left and hid it under his floor furnace, in a place no thief would check. He wrote down every deposit and every withdrawal for eleven years.
The ledger showed that most families had come back for their money. But twelve jars were never claimed. The families had moved away, or passed on, or simply never knew he had kept it safe.
Tara called the Tyler County historical society. A volunteer named Mrs. Burke spent three evenings with the ledger and the old church registers. By Friday she had located descendants for nine of the twelve jars.
The law on found money is clear enough. It belonged to the owners of the house, and they were free to make it right. Tara and Josh consulted a local attorney, who helped them place the funds in trust for the rightful families.
The descendants came on a Sunday afternoon, one by one, to the little house on Wells Street. A farmer in overalls. A schoolteacher. A great-granddaughter who clutched the label for her family name.
Not one of them took more than their label said. Several refused to take anything, and asked that it go to the town library instead.
An honest man hid other peoples money under a furnace for eleven years because he believed that keeping a promise is a form of kindness.
I finished the job that week and installed their new floor heater myself. Before I left, Tara handed me one of the old labels, Elias Hollis, in blue pencil. I keep it in my truck beside my tape measure.