These people found her because they were looking for her.

The general historical consciousness is slower to incorporate overlooked histories, because it is shaped by the same structural forces that created the obscurity in the first place.

The mystery, then, is not entirely mysterious.

The forces that made Mary Kenner unknown were systematic, and the forces that have partially recovered her history are also systematic.

What remains genuinely uncertain is how long it takes for partial recovery to become genuine integration — how long it takes for a name that appears on a specialized list to become a name that appears in the general historical consciousness of a society.

Mary Kenner deserves to be in that general historical consciousness.