Death records resurface after four decades
After 45 years, the case of a set of missing Montgomery County records has finally been solved.
According to a statement from a Montgomery County records clerk who retired in 2001, in 1977, a man who came in searching for a particular death record seemed rather suspicious. The next morning, a window was broken and the book was missing. Mysteriously the set of death records from 1937 to 1949 was the only thing stolen in the break-in.
The book ultimately found its way to a flea market in 1978. Shortly thereafter, it was donated to the Sam Houston Regional Library in Liberty. This would be its home for the next four decades.
“Fact is stranger than fiction,” said Montgomery County Records Administrator Ellen Collins discussing the 45-year journey the records took, only to end up right back where they belong.
While neither Collins nor Sara Forlano, a technical writer for the Montgomery County Clerk’s Office, were with the government entity 45 years ago, the retired clerk offered important insight on how the records disappeared in the first place.
Now to the next chapter for the records, the Newton Gresham Library on Sam Houston State’s main campus is part of the Regional Historical Resource Depository with the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
“Basically, our library is a depository for local counties and their records,” Trent Shotwell of SHSU’s Special Collections and University Archives said. “When they run out of space or need some of their records to be stored off site, we take those. We do this for about nine different counties, including Montgomery County.”
The SHSU library has been storing certain records for quite some time. When they run out of space, however, they are typically stored at the Liberty location. Forlano had recently inquired about the only set of her county’s records that she knew to be stored in Liberty, which were sent off about 1015 years ago.
While inquiring about this set of unrelated records, the librarian mentioned to her in passing that they had discovered a death records book from Montgomery County that had been found at a flea market in 1978 and was then donated to the location as part of a personal papers collection.
“I knew these records had been missing, but I thought that this could not be the same book,” Forlano said.
But it was, in fact, the set of missing records.
They were discovered during a thorough inventory process before being sent to the Newton Gresham Library, where they remained for roughly a year. After speaking with the Liberty location, Forlano called Shotwell in April and asked him to see if they had received their missing book. Despite its poor condition, Shotwell found the records and Montgomery County began going through the proper bureaucratic channels to retrieve it.
The transfer was officially approved by State Archivist and Director for Texas State Libraries and Archives Commission Jelain Chubb on May 30. Forlano, Collins and Montgomery County Chief Deputy/Court Administrator Darin Bailey picked up the records book from Shotwell the library in late June.
In a strange twist, one week before the discovery of the location of the book, a citizen had requested a death record from the set.
Fortunately, it would be the last time Montgomery County personnel would have to explain they no longer knew the whereabouts of the lost records.
The Montgomery County Clerk’s Office is located 210 West Davis Street in Conroe. Visit www.mctx.org and then the County Clerk’s tab for more information on the office. Visit library.shsu.edu for more about the Newton Gresham Library on the campus of Sam Houston State University.
The record book was stolen in 1977, found at a flea market in 1978 and later donated to a Sam Houston State University library.