Correspondence with Bill Gould (Part 2)
Part 2 of my correspondence with Corvette historian Bill Gould from Auto Ancestry.
"I spent some more time this morning trying to identify the first owner Lee Day from the Sacramento area. I made an exciting discovery.
Lee A Day was a mechanic for Lew Williams Chevrolet. See the attached files. I also found that in 1975 he was still a mechanic at the dealership and had been since at least 1962. His wife’s death record below shows that she was born in 1919. It is also possible that Fawn was his mother but she probably was his wife indicating that he was about the same age. Further proof is found in the fact that he was working in 1975 at Lew Williams and was retired by 1978. Most men retired at that time in the USA at age 65 so we can estimate his birth year at around 1913. He would have been about 52 years old when he bought the Corvette. That is a little unusual but not impossible.
I did look for a deed in Sacramento County but they only have an index.I checked off the 1950’s decade for when they purchased the house at 1901 Kenwood. That eliminates the possibility that Lee was Fawn’s son since in the 1950’s he would have been too young to be on a deed.
I discovered that they were married in 1947 but no age was given for Lee.
I cannot find an obituary for either Lee or Fawn but we know that Fawn died in 1973. It is highly likely that Lee is also deceased. I found one death record for a man by the name Lee Day in Sacramento who was a few years older but I do not know if he is our man. See below.
Further research can be done to determine if Lee Day had any children but that would require another search at this point.
Your car is one of the last Corvettes I will be researching. After 8 years and over 1000 cars I am retiring from AutoAncestry to pursue something else"
Bill Gould, AutoAncestry
Name: Lee Day
State of Issue: Iowa
Date of Birth: Saturday May 14, 1904
Date of Death: February 1980
Est. Age at Death: 75 years, 9 months
Last known residence:
City: Sacramento; North Sacramento
County: Sacramento
State: California
Name: Fawn F Day
Date of Birth: 03 Sep 1919
Date of Death: 29 Jun 1973
Event Place: Sacramento, California, United States
Birthplace: North Carolina
