Janice Louise "Spinda" Crompton

In 2018, Janice Spinda Crompton was trying to balance her job as a Post-Gazette reporter with the physical limitations of her treatment for stage 4 breast cancer. She and her editors came up with a plan - she would become the newspaper's chief obituary writer, allowing her to work exclusively from home.

For the next seven years, Ms. Crompton chronicled the lives of notable Pittsburghers with sensitivity, devotion and a talent for storytelling, encapsulating the lives of everyone from politicians to teachers to Holocaust survivors.

"Janice was a superb journalist and a beautiful writer," said Stan Wischnowski, vice president and executive editor of the Post-Gazette. "What made her such an outstanding obituary reporter was that she was a tremendous listener who displayed great empathy for those she wrote about and treated her sources with great dignity and kindness during their most difficult moments."

Ms. Crompton died Aug. 7 of complications from cancer. She was 55.

Going through Ms. Crompton's phone after she died, her sister Christine Spinda found about 200 text messages from family members, friends and co-workers of Ms. Crompton's obituary subjects thanking her for the job that she had done.

"She always would respond, 'You're welcome. It was my privilege,' " said her sister. "And she really felt that way."

In 2021, Ms. Crompton contacted Dr. Frank Costa for an interview for a news obituary about his mother, Antonietta Costa, who lived through the Nazi occupation of Italy during World War II and owned a successful pizza shop in Garfield.

When he read the article, he was astonished. "I was so fascinated by how she could be able to capture the essence of her entire being in just a few paragraphs," he said.

He became a fan of Ms. Crompton's work, reading her obituaries daily and corresponding with her through emails back and forth. About six months after their first phone call, Dr. Costa, a urological surgeon, learned of her serious diagnosis and realized that his former colleague was one of her doctors. He became a sounding board for medical advice for Ms. Crompton, as well as a friend.

"I think because of the fact that she herself was suffering from her own problems allowed her to be more sensitive to being able to delve into the lives and the experiences of the people that she wrote about," he said.

"She was able to take those experiences of those people and to process them not only in her mind, but also her heart and soul, because when she wrote about these people, you could sense that very deep sense of understanding. They really were remembered in a way that I think only she could do."

Ms. Crompton grew up in Eighty-Four, Washington County, on a 5-acre farm. She participated in 4H, winning ribbons for the feeder pigs that she would show at fairs. She wrote for the student newspaper at Ringgold High School.

She attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania, but left college before she graduated, taking jobs in writing and public relations. She worked at 84 Lumber while Joe Hardy was developing the Nemacolin resort and freelanced for newspapers such as the Washington Observer-Reporter and the Post-Gazette.

In 2000, the Post-Gazette hired her as a reporter in its South bureau. Ms. Crompton covered major stories such as the development of natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale and Washington County corruption cases, as well as Peters school board meetings.

She moved to the Post-Gazette newsroom on the North Shore around 2015, continuing to specialize in Washington County but also writing general news and features.

Outside the newsroom, she was passionate about animals, mysteries and everything British, as well as her family. Her daughter Haley was born in 1995 and, even working full time, Ms. Crompton didn't hesitate to start a Girl Scout troop when Haley expressed interest, teaching the girls to camp and cook over a campfire. She also loved nature, spending time with Haley raising caterpillars into monarch butterflies, birdwatching, or growing strawberries in their garden in South Franklin.

Ms. Crompton was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 at age 38 - stage 2 at the time. After surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, her cancer was declared to be in remission and stayed that way for eight years. In 2016, however, the cancer came back as stage 4, and it had spread to her spine.

It was two years later, when she had difficulty traveling to news assignments because of her cancer treatments, that the "chief obituarist" role emerged.

"She did a lot of different things for the paper, but when she got that, it was her sweet spot," said Matt Smith, one of her former Post-Gazette editors. "It became her thing to do - the obit writer - and she took pride in that."

It suited her, said Lillian Thomas, another of her former editors.

"Janice was always so unfailingly polite and kind and empathetic, despite the fact that she had all these issues," she said. "That's a good quality doing obituaries - you need to connect with the family very quickly despite that they have never heard of you or met you before. She was just a very good person to do that because of that sweetness of her temperament."

Even going through nearly 10 years with a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, Ms. Crompton rarely complained about her health. "She would have a hospital stay of a week or a month, but she would always come back swinging," said her daughter.

She took a particular interest in writing about Pittsburgh's Holocaust survivors, as well as others who had survived traumatic circumstances.

"Writing a news obituary for someone is a very serious thing - it's the last thing you'll be remembered by," said her daughter, who sometimes overheard her mother's interview calls because she worked from home.

"She was always so gentle and kind with everyone. She would call at any hour of the day, any day of the week - working hours didn't matter to her. She was passionate about wanting to tell people's life stories as a final memorial to them."

Ms. Crompton is survived by her mother, Mary Lou Spinda Mangold, of Monroeville, as well as her brother, John Spinda, of Clemson, S.C., her sister Christine Spinda, of San Diego, and her daughter Haley Crompton, of Hampton.

The family asks that any donations in her memory be made to the Paws Across Pittsburgh animal rescue.

Written by Anya Sostek

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette