Leotabel (Mullican) Day (1903 - 1963)

Born 25 Oct 1903 in Macy, Allen Township, Miami, Indiana, United States

Ancestors

Wife of C. Mischel Picard — married 9 Dec 1928 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Wife of Jerome Edward Day — married 16 Feb 1946 in California, United States

Died 25 Jul 1963 at age 59 in Glendale, Los Angeles, California, United States

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Biography

Leota (Mullican) Day is Notable.

Leotabel was born in 1903. She was the daughter of Lorenzo Mullican and Cora Hicks.

Leota led her sisters into show business. She was the shortest of the 5 sisters, blond, dimpled, charming, self assured, and loaded with talent. She was the oldest of the girls in the family.

At the age of 4, Leota was showing off her singing talent in Sunday school programs at the Methodist Church in Indianola, Indiana. When she was 12 she won first place in a state music festival.

After graduating from High School, she enrolled at Simpson College, receiving her Bachelor of Music degree in 1925.

Leota and three of her sisters performed in Edwards "Greenwich Village Follies" in 1926. It was Edwards that suggested the sisters adopt the last name of Lane as it was thought to sound better. So the sisters and their mother took the last name of Lane thereafter.

She married, 1928, Mischel Picard, a wealthy New York manufacturer. They divorce in 1930, claiming his jealousy was threatening her career.

In 1929 she made her Broadway debut in "Babes in Toyland."

Her career flourished with Broadway hits, comic opera, and summer opera. In 1933 she was in "Strike Me Pink" at the Des Moines' Opera Theater.

In 1934 Leota Lane sang in the summer productions of the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company.

A high point of Leota's career came in early 1939 when she sang in her New York City opera debut. She sang the lead in Maurice Ravel's "L'heure Espagnole," a production of the Julliard School of Music, which is where Leota received her bachelor degree in 1937.

She did a national singing tour in 1937 and 1939 and also sang with the Ziegfeld Follies.

In 1940 she married, Edward Pitts, who was an official with the Capitol Theater in New York City, and later became an executive with the Lockheed Aircraft Company. They divorced and she married Jerome Day. He was also an executive with the Lockheed Aircraft Company.

She later toured for the USO, performing at Army bases across the nation.

In 1943 she returned to Des Moines, Iowa to sing for the troops at Camp Dodge and Fort Des Moines.

In 1944 Leota joined the Women's Army Corps, training as a WAC at Fort Des Moines.

In her later years, she spent time with her husband, Jerome, on their San Fernando Valley ranch. She continued to sing, but only with her church choir.

In July, 1963 at the age of 60 she died in a hospital in Glendale, California, following open heart surgery.

She passed away in 1963.^[1]She is buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, Los Angeles, California.

Sources

1. ↑ https://findagrave.com/memorial/24971191

• https://familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L9CN-JWG