Minnesota natives Curt and Adele Brown stood in the charred rubble of their daughter and daughter-in-law’s home in Altadena, Calif. – one of the thousands destroyed in the Eaton fire earlier this month. With a sifter like they were panning for gold – a screen in a wooden frame – they were looking for their daughter-in-law’s engagement ring.
They weren’t so lucky (yet), but it didn’t mean they didn’t find something miraculous: An unharmed, completely intact China matzah plate for Passover. Slightly covered in soot, but easily wiped off.

Adele and Curt Brown looking through the rubble at their daughter and daughter-in-law’s house in Altadena, Calif.
“There was nothing at all, as a whole, except for that plate,” Adele Brown said. “They had a seder plate in the same box as that matzah plate and it was in shards.
“It was the only thing that was whole. No other plates, no other pots. Nothing.”
Mackenzie Brownsmith, her wife, Val, and their two children evacuated their home on Jan. 7. Mackenzie saw the fire get close to the home, so she left with their children; the Browns said that Val was helping her parents evacuate their home in Altadena.
The family is safe and in temporary housing. Adding something else into the mix: Mackenzie is pregnant and due in about a month as a surrogate, and the last few weeks have been stressful.
“You see this stuff happened from Maui to Paradise, Calif., and when it’s your own kid, it totally changes your perspective on these disasters,” Curt Brown said.
Said Adele Brown: “You look around your house and say, ‘Oh my God, everything they have, is gone.’”
Included in what’s gone is their firebox, where people typically keep important documents. The Spanish-tiled roof fell, and then the walls collapsed.
“It’s just a chimney with rubble,” she said.
Among the things lost in the fire was the chuppah that Mackenzie and Val were married under.
“The first day I talked to Mackenzie and Val, Val said to me, ‘Our chuppah is gone,’” Adele Brown said. “I said ‘yeah, we can make this happen.’”
St. Paul artist Sandra Brick made the chuppah, and Brick will make the couple a replacement, a gift from Adele Brown’s Jewish book club from Mount Zion.
The matzah plate probably won’t be used anymore; Adele Brown is worried about how it will hold up over time and what kind of toxins might be part of the plate now.
“We’re going to put it in a shadow box,” she said.