Treasure hunt.
The very phrase conjures up images of pirate maps and childhood fantasies. However, it was no fantasy when Amy Stiles Keller reached into the knothole of a tree in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and pulled out a golden token that culminated her 15-month quest for a very real treasure. The token will be exchanged for a 95-carat uncut black diamond valued at $20,000.
Keller’s adventure began in November 2004 when she purchased a newly published book by Michael Stadther entitled “A Treasure’s Trove.” Keller had seen a television program that told how the 100-page fairy tale had clues embedded in the story that would lead to a dozen leaf-shaped tokens, each depicting a character from the book. Keller remembered how she and her younger sister had helped their mother years ago with a similar treasure hunt sponsored by a Redwood City newspaper. Although they had not won that search, the three women had enjoyed the process. Keller’s mother died not long after and Keller thought the new search might be a fun project to share with her sister, Carol Stultz, now of Livermore.
“We began it as sort of a hobby, but it became more like an addiction,” admitted Keller with a laugh. “Carol and I would wait until our kids and husbands were barely out of the house, then we’d call each other and spend hours trying to figure out the clues.” As soon as their family members came home at the end of the day, the two sisters would scramble to hide the many notes they amassed in their effort to locate the treasure.
Originally only 12 tokens were mentioned, but the author later added clues for two more tokens that he personally had hidden in the national treasure hunt. Keller downloaded a clue page from www.atreasurestrove.com that did indeed resemble the kind of parchment of pirate treasure lore. On the page were clusters of letters, three across and three down, with the middle letter missing. Somehow Keller discovered that the clusters matched word arrangements on one of the pages of the fairy tale. She filled in the blanks and came up with an anagram for “golden gate.” The remaining letters were all consonants: PRYBK. Through diligent research, Keller decided that this clue might lead to Prayerbook Cross in Golden Gate Park.
Bill Keller was impressed enough with his wife’s deduction to accompany her to that location, a place neither had ever been before. Armed with gloves, flashlights and mirrors, they spent three hours carefully searching the hilltop on which the immense cross stands. It was raining and Keller reluctantly decided they would have to call off their search in order to make it to their nephew’s birthday party. As she trudged toward their van, she noticed that it was sheltered by a large tree. Keller reached over her head into a visible knothole and closed her fingers around a golden leaf with the raised figure of Rusfel, a villain in the fairytale.
“I was so excited that I just began screaming,” said Keller. “Two bicyclists had just passed me on the path, and they screeched their brakes to come see if I needed help.” By that time, Keller’s husband had hurried down the hill and heard her explain to the strangers what she had just discovered. The cyclists were able to help, after all, by taking photos of Amy and Bill Keller with the token. “I was so excited that I couldn’t get my own digital camera to work, and this nice man figured it out so we could capture the moment. We took down their names and address so we could send them a thank you.”
The Kellers went on to the family birthday celebration, where Amy told her sister Carol what had happened, and promised to split the prize with her. The two families stayed up late marveling at their good fortune. It was not until about 3 a.m. that Keller realized that there was something else extra-special about her day’s adventure, and she awoke her sister to share the news.
“It just hit me in the middle of the night that the two people who had stopped their bicycles to offer help had the same first names as the main characters of ‘The Treasure’s Trove,'” said Keller. “We arranged to meet them back at Golden Gate Park the following weekend, this time to take their pictures.” Keller opened the book to the author’s illustration of Zac and Ana. Like the book’s character, Zac of San Francisco is red-haired, and like his namesake, he is a carpenter. Like the made-up Zac, the real one had created a jewelry box with dovetail joints for Ana–who also spells her name with one “n.” Both the real and fictitious Anas have long dark hair. “All these coincidences,” exclaimed Keller, “they just made the experience seem so cosmic!”
Author Stadther could not have created a better ending to Keller’s search. Stadther himself has a better-than-fiction life story. Born to a very poor family in Mobile, Ala., he later moved to Kentucky where he received an unexpected break when one of his teachers recognized his potential and arranged for him to attend a residential high school for gifted students. As a teenager, Stadther wrote a mathematics research paper that was deemed important enough to be presented to NASA scientists. A NASA physicist became Stadther’s personal benefactor, helping Stadther pay his way to Tulane University–where he completed his undergraduate degree in only three years.
As an adult, Stadther had a highly successful career in computer software development in New York. He and his wife created two businesses specializing in software for the banking industry. Now age 50 and living in Connecticut, Stradther has the wealth and time to do whatever he wants. He spent eight years figuring out how he could create a national treasure hunt that would not disturb private lands or harm the public lands where he hid each of the tokens.
When no publisher showed interest in the story he had written and meticulously illustrated, Stadther published it himself–and had the satisfaction of seeing it reach the national best-seller lists in the category of children’s fiction. In April of 2005, Stadther was invited by the office of First Lady Laura Bush to read “A Treasure’s Trove” at the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House. Stadther also has appeared on national television regarding the book and treasure hunt.
Now Stadther is busy planning the launch of the sequel, “Secrets of the Alchemist Dar,” due in bookstores this September. The new treasure hunt based on the second book reportedly will extend beyond the borders of the Unites States of America.
Does Keller of Pleasanton plan to join in the next treasure hunt?
“I haven’t decided,” she said. “This was a lot of fun, but it became like an obsession for Carol and me. I don’t know if we want to start that again.”
However, once the $1 million in prizes for the first treasure hunt are distributed, perhaps the sisters will change their minds.
