Containing and releasing family history

300 Mason Jars: Preserving History
by Joanne Thomson

Victoria: Heritage House, 2024
$34.95  /  9781772935162   

Reviewed by Valerie Green

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Author, artist, and poet Joanne Thomson, has found a delightfully different way of preserving her family history in her book 300 Mason Jars.

In six separate sections Thomson has created her family’s story in prose, poetry, and illustrations.

I am often asked how I came up with the idea of using Mason Jars for this series. I thank Fred Marshall and his trusty tape recorder. When Fred purchased the property “up Kerr Creek,” where my grandparents, Werner and Eva lived and raised their daughters between 1926 and 1946, he sought out my grandmother and recorded her stories . . . in one of the stories Eva described how she had 300 Mason Jars “on the go at all times,” to preserve food.

This gave the author the idea to “preserve” those family tales in the same way. Each of the family’s stories are told in one of the jars accompanied by a poem. In between these beautiful illustrations, the author tells a little of the dark history that began with her grandfather Werner Preetzman who immigrated from Halle, Germany, when he was seventeen. The author’s mother (one of his daughters) never spoke of her father other than showing photos of his ancestors. Later, the author received three different versions about his death. Finally, “at my aunt’s kitchen table the family secret finally slipped out.” Werner had committed suicide.

“I didn’t understand the reason for the secret until I was halfway through the series,” wrote Thomson. “My mother was protecting me. She believed if I had known Werner had taken his own life, I may have done the same when times were tough, as they often were.” She imagined it might be an inherited trait.

After the secret came out, mother and daughter came to see that this was “just ordinary tragic human stuff.” It enabled the author to clearly see her family and all “its ups and downs.” She was now able to tell her family history through all the segments of their story.

From sections titled “Eggs in the Jar,” to “Ribbon at the Fair,” and “A Cruise Remembered,” her artwork places items from the past inside a jar which she then paints.

Food security concerns among vegetable gardens, berry bushes, and fruit trees were part of the author’s childhood. “Our family was low income,” she writes, “yet I experienced a childhood of abundance.”

The next section in the book concerns renewal and hope, and this explains Werner’s love of the land that has been passed down to future generations. Here, the author experiments with the jars and objects in them hoping to create a new way to connect with beauty and bring renewal of life.

Heirlooms and artifacts bring back family memories. “An Avon perfume jar evokes the scent of Grandmother Thomson as she traces the line on my palm and then smooths the hair away from my brow,” writes Thomson. In this part of the book, the poems and objects within the jars evoke memories from the past. Gloves, scissors, potato salads, birthday gifts, and paint brushes all cleverly tell a family tale.

The last section in the book, “Hidden and Suppressed,” concerns the dark chapters of family history; the loss of a child, a World War separating family members, life lost on one side of the family and a life imprisoned on the other. In addition, there is marital separation leading to the alienation of children from their father, as well as poverty and a loss of dreams.  But all the dark parts eventually lead to a balance of “light and dark” which, in the author’s opinion in their family history, has left behind a legacy of love and resilience, hard work, and determination.

In an afterword, another part of the family history is told through family photographs. There is also a chronological list of all her presented artwork to complete the story.

300 Mason Jars: Preserving History is a book to be treasured. Beautifully presented in colour, the delightful poems and contents of the mason jars can be savoured and preserved for years to come.

At the beginning of the book, the author quotes John Berger: “The men and women….were now an image in the minds of their descendants. They had acquired the mystery and the stability of the past.”

Thomson has brought her ancestors alive in this inspirational preservation of the past which is no longer a mystery but simply a colourful descriptive image.

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Valerie Green was born and educated in England, where she studied journalism and law. Her passion was always for writing from the moment she first held a pen. After working at the world-famous Foyles Books in London (followed by a brief stint with MI5 and legal firms), she moved to Canada in 1968 and embarked on a long career as a freelance writer, columnist, and author of over twenty nonfiction historical and true-crime books. Hancock House recently released Tomorrow, the final volume of The McBride Chronicles (after Providence, Destiny, and Legacy). Now semi-retired (although writers never really retire!) she enjoys taking short road trips around BC with her husband, watching their two beloved grandsons grow up and, of course, writing. [Editor’s note: Valerie Green has recently reviewed books by Joan Steacy, R.W. Butler, John D’Eathe, M.A.C Farrant, Olga Campbell, and Beka Shane Denter for The British Columbia Review.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

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