Stone-cold stumped by an old why-dunit

With two days to go until the 2008 Rose Bowl game, this column is my Hail Mary pass to anyone who can help solve a nagging mystery.

I’m hoping someone in Pasadena can come through, or perhaps someone in Santa Barbara or beyond. Maybe one of the 92,000 fans expected to attend Tuesday’s scrum between USC and Illinois can offer a clue.

As spectators march toward the stadium entrance for the big game, they’ll pass a relatively obscure memorial to an unknown soldier.

A stone the size of a doormat sits in a broken concrete border surrounded by a scattering of cigarette butts and other debris. It’s a plain piece of work, almost crude in its simplicity. As you face the big Rose Bowl sign at the south entrance, it’s off to the left, next to a pedestrian bridge that leads over the storm channel.

The name on the marker is Daniel S.J. Lief. The inscription says he was a private in the 17th Infantry during the Spanish-American War. Lief was born Oct. 14, 1879, and died Jan. 5, 1966.

There are no other such headstones in the area, and no indication of why this one happens to be there.

“It’s where?” asked Rose Bowl operations manager Jess Waiters, who said he’d never stumbled across the memorial. And he knew of no records indicating anyone had gotten permission to put it there.

Waiters suggested I call James Stivers, who has been involved with the Tournament of Roses and the stadium for half a century.

“This is news to me,” said Stivers, who added that he’d be delighted to know what the story is. He suggested I call a man whose connection to the Rose Bowl goes all the way back to the beginning.

“Where exactly is it?” asked Bill Leishman, who was no less surprised than Stivers.

Leishman’s grandfather, William, was president of the Tournament of Roses in 1920. He led the campaign to build the Rose Bowl, which hosted its first game in 1923. William’s son, Lathrop, and grandson, Bill, have both been involved with the parade and stadium ever since.

Bill Leishman met me on a cold, drizzly day to look at the neglected memorial. It was the first time he had set eyes on it.

Was Pvt. Lief’s body under our feet, we wondered? We kind of doubted it, but neither of us could know.

I explained that I learned of the stone from colleague Richard Kipling, who had come upon it on a morning walk. But my sleuthing was getting me nowhere.

I followed Leishman’s suggestion to check burial records in the area, but struck out. Phone records turned up no Liefs in Pasadena. I began dialing Liefs across California, but nobody had ever heard of a relative who fought in the Spanish-American War.

The Pasadena Historical Society referred me to local historian Elizabeth Pomeroy, saying she had started her own investigation several years earlier.

Pomeroy told me she had given up and suggested I try Sid Gally, who writes articles on local history for the Pasadena Star News.

Gally told me he “tried and tried” but couldn’t figure out who Daniel Lief was. My best bet, he said, was to call Lynne Emery, another local historian who’d been on the case since 1990.

“When I first talked to the Rose Bowl people and asked about the stone in the parking lot, they said, ‘What stone?’ ” said Emery.

Emery, a Pasadena resident since 1958, checked local directories back to the early 1900s and found no trace of a Daniel Lief.

“I’ve asked several old-time Pasadenans,” she said. “Nobody knows anything about how the plaque got there, let alone who the guy was.”

Emery wished me luck, though.

“I’d love to have that mystery solved,” she said. “It’s driving me nuts.”

I was beginning to know exactly how she felt. The elusive Pvt. Lief, whoever he was, had left a growing trail of frustrated pursuers.

Was he an area resident who enjoyed taking walks around the Rose Bowl and asked a relative to put his marker there after he was gone?

Was he a football fan who attended the Jan. 1, 1966, contest in which UCLA upset Michigan State with Gary Beban at quarterback?

Did he get so worked up at the game that he suffered a heart attack and died four days later?

I read up on the Spanish-American War and the 17th Infantry. On July 1, 1898, when he would have been 18, was Pvt. Lief with the troops that took San Juan Hill and El Caney in Cuba, led by -- among others -- Theodore Roosevelt?

I scanned Army rosters from that era but didn’t find his name.

I called more Liefs across the state. More frustration.

It was Emery who suggested that I try something I should have tried much earlier -- check L.A. Times archives for an obituary.

Times researcher John Jackson gave me my first break in the case. There was no obituary, but Jackson dug up Social Security records for a Daniel S. Leif who died on Jan. 5, 1966, in Santa Barbara.

Thanks, I told Jackson. But it says L-I-E-F on the plaque, not L-E-I-F.

Understood, Jackson said. But what are the chances that a Daniel S.J. Lief and a Daniel S. Leif both died on Jan. 5, 1966?

The name could have been misspelled on either the stone or on government records, which is not unheard of.

I called the Santa Barbara County recorder’s office, where a clerk named Miriam Leon dug up the death records of Daniel S.J. Leif. His birth date was the same as the one listed on the Rose Bowl marker, and he died at 8:15 on the morning of Jan. 5, 1966.

This was my guy, no doubt.

But how could a loved one have misspelled his name on the Rose Bowl stone, and why was it there?

Leif died of cardiac arrest, at the age of 86, in his residence at 2528 Bath St. in Santa Barbara. He left behind a wife, Dorothy E. Leif. He was originally from Minnesota. His father, Jacob Leif, had German roots. His mother’s maiden name was Rath.

The Haider Mortuary handled the body, according to the records, and Pvt. Leif was laid to rest at Calvary Cemetery in Santa Barbara, not at the Rose Bowl.

I checked, and his body is still at the cemetery, but an attendant was unable to say whether any family had visited the grave recently.

A quick Google search turned up the Welch-Ryce-Haider Funeral Chapels, where managing partner Steve Gibson exhumed the file on Pvt. Leif and found an intriguing letter that resolved a key part of the mystery.

Written on onionskin paper, it was dated June 3, 1966, and was sent from the funeral home to the Army.

“Gentlemen: We have been notified by the family of the late Daniel S.J. Leif, who died Jan. 5, 1966, that the gray granite headstone supplied by your department is in error on the spelling of his name.”

Another letter in the file, from the Army, said a corrected replacement headstone would be sent. It advised the mortuary to destroy the marker with the wrong spelling.

But maybe no one did, Gibson theorized. Maybe a family member kept the headstone, and, for whatever reason, it ended up at the Rose Bowl.

I asked Gibson if surviving family members were listed in the file.

Yes. Four brothers, including Andrew J. Leif, of Pasadena.

I found no record of an Andrew Leif, but I imagined the possibility of him ending up with the stone and planting it in a nice spot to remember his brother by. Or maybe the brothers had a tradition of attending Rose Bowl games together.

The mortuary records also listed among Daniel Leif’s survivors a son, Gerald Leif, and a daughter, Dorothy J. Herring, both of Santa Barbara. I found a phone number for a Dorothy Herring, but it was out of service.

She and her brother might well have followed their father by now, but as I was tracking them, historian Lynne Emery had learned that Dorothy Herring had a daughter, Grace, and a son, Jerry.

Are they out there somewhere? If not, there must be other descendants who can fill in the gaps in the story of how a Spanish-American War vet from Minnesota ended up with a misspelled headstone outside the Rose Bowl.

If so, please get hold of me immediately. In the words of another amateur sleuth, it’s driving me nuts.

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steve.lopez@latimes.com