In 1974 when my father William R. Compton II died, he willed many of his family possessions to my sister, Anne Compton. She joined the LDS Church in 1975 in Birmingham, Alabama. As she and I were the only children in our family, we decided to split up the responsibilities of genealogy research in 1977. I would take my mother and her information, and Anne would take our father. Among the many items that Anne had was a black scrapbook of newspaper articles about William R. Compton I (our grandfather), who was appointed U.S. Marshal for northern and western New York state by Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. These had been collected and saved by our grandmother, Helen Tubbs Compton, until his death in 1912. Anne had the 82 scrapbook pages laminated and rebound. She also had many photographs of our Compton line ancestors restored, duplicated and sent to me. During her years in Alabama, she did extensive research on the Compton side of the family, resulting in the submission of thousands of family group sheets with more than 52,000 names to the LDS Church. She was featured in an article in “The Church News” on January 1988 about her research despite her many medical problems.
Soon after this article appeared, she was contacted by Lynn and Dixie in Plano, Texas, distributors of herbal products marketed by Sunrider Corporation. Anne left Alabama shortly thereafter and moved in with them and became a Sunrider distributor as well. In 1989, this couple moved to Oregon and Anne decided to move to Desert Hot Springs, California. Dixie and Lynn planned to rent a storage unit in Oregon. As Anne had no place of her own to store her personal possessions, she asked Dixie if she could take her things with her and store them until such time as Anne could get settled and have a place of her own. In addition to the many personal items of Anne’s, most of the memorabilia items of our father and his parents were included, including the scrapbook. Anne stayed in California until early 1992 and then moved to Nebraska for three years before returning to Desert Hot Springs in 1995.
In 1996, Anne had heard from Dixie that they were moving and would no longer need their storage unit (they had transferred the storage items several times to different localities in Oregon over the 7 year interval). After requesting access, she and a close friend drove to Oregon. Anne told me at the time that she found many of the boxes were missing, and what remained had been crushed with broken items inside. She salvaged what she could, and after returning to Desert Hot Springs, she was able to send me a number of the remaining Compton items, but said all the rest was either lost or destroyed.
Fast forward: 17 years later, on June 12, 2013 Donald Clark, 72, living in Butte Creek Canyon near Centerville, California shot and killed three Sacramento residents at his property. Two teenagers and a mother had stolen a car, driven up to Mr. Clarke’s property, and he shot them with a 12 gauge pump shotgun as they approached his home. He then put them in their vehicle, along with a bicycle, and drove 20 miles further into the mountains, set the car on fire, and then biked back home. During his trial, it was testified that he moved to the property as a caretaker for an owner in southern California about 1998. It had previously been a boy’s ranch over a hundred years ago, but all that was left was a few sheds, one of which Clark lived in with no electricity or running water. He was described as a scavenger and hoarder who would collect and reuse, resell or take apart and recycle items. He was described as having “everything under the sun.” He was sentenced to prison for life without parole.
After the property was vacated in June, another man, J.S., settled on the property. On August 31, 2013 a vegetation fire on the property burned 80 acres including the buildings and scattered piles of debris. The property owner wanted to sell the property and asked J.S. to leave the property. He and a girlfriend, Tanya, attempted to clean up and salvage what remained, taking it to nearby Chico, California. They couldn’t afford a storage unit, and they decided they would just get rid of it. A girlfriend of Tanya's, L.N., got wind of the situation and after looking through the stuff found some collectible baseball cards and among other things a newspaper scrapbook. L.N. told her, “You can’t get rid of this; this is somebody’s life!” So some of the items were kept and the rest were destroyed. After keeping them for several years, in 2018 L.N. was cleaning her home and decided to do something about the collected items. She went to Ebay and other sites to find out what the cards were worth, and decided to also try and find someone who might be interested in the scrapbook. Doing a Google search for a William R. Compton who died in Elmira New York in 1912, she came across my “Compton - Haynes Ancestral Nuggets” blog website. I had started this blog in 2017 after I took a class at a family history convention in St. George, Utah. The blog had posts and pictures about William R. Compton, my grandfather. As my email contact was listed on the blog, she sent me an email on December 29, 2018, writing “Dear Mr. Compton, I have your grandfather’s scrapbook. I have been wanting to get this to you.” She gave me her phone number, and after talking with her and confirming that she did indeed have the missing scrapbook, she mailed it to me. I received the package on January 12, 2019, and upon opening the package I found the scrapbook of newspaper articles in near pristine condition, having survived for over 44 years after my father died, missing from the family for 30 years, 7 changes of hands and a fire.It was like receiving manna from heaven and a true MIRACLE!
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