Mason spent a Saturday sorting address histories with a volunteer genealogist named Ruth Webb.
Ruth had spent twenty years helping families find relatives separated by migration and changing records.
She cautioned him that a matching name was not proof of identity.
They began with public directories and verified death notices, then contacted possible relatives without mentioning the amount of any potential payment.
One family lived in Pennsylvania and had never heard of the cooperative.
Another remembered a grandfather who had invested in a warehouse but believed he lost everything when it closed.
The most difficult case involved a woman named Agnes Fuller whose maiden name appeared differently on three documents.
A niece insisted that Agnes had no children.
A cousin claimed she had a son who moved to California.
Ruth advised the committee to ask counsel to verify the family relationship before making any distribution.
The process frustrated several members who wanted the settlement finished before summer.
Pearl reminded them that a rushed payment to the wrong person would create another injured family.
Mason thought of the original purchase and the way missing signatures had been treated as a minor problem.
He refused to help repeat that mistake.
At the local library he found an old community newsletter listing Agnes as a volunteer at a school fundraiser.
The article mentioned a daughter, Caroline, then eleven years old.
Ruth used the information to narrow the search and eventually located Caroline’s adult children.
They lived in Michigan and had kept a shoebox of letters from Agnes.
One letter described the cooperative as her only investment outside the family home.
Another thanked Elliot Clark for helping repair a broken loading dock.
Caroline’s daughter cried when Ruth explained why the committee had contacted them.
She had believed Agnes’s contributions were forgotten.
The family agreed to submit the necessary records through the committee’s attorney.
Mason returned to Denise with the news and a copy of the school newsletter.
Denise recognized Agnes immediately.
“She brought you a knitted blanket when you were born,” she said.
Mason looked at the faded photograph in the article.
He had carried that blanket through childhood without knowing anything about the woman who made it.
The connection made the old purchase feel less like a lawsuit and more like a neighborhood.
He called Ruth to thank her for finding the family.
Ruth told him that the work was not finished because two heirs remained unconfirmed.
Mason smiled and opened his notebook again.
