Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 13:04:44 -0500
From: Tracy Neely <stearmn@bellsouth.net>

My name is Tracy Neely Stearman.  I  believe that in one of your
appendices on your Lake and Leake homepage-website there is an unknown
Lake buried in a Prescott, AZ  cemetery.  My ex-husband's mother,
Delrena Rose Lake (Stearman) was buried in Yavapai county cemetery in
an unmarked grave.   I have called the cemetery to verify this as the
Stearman family has proved to be an unreliable resource in family history.
She was the oldest daughter of a William John Lake( b.1906-d.10/31/96)
of Inkster, MI.  She had 7 siblings, some of whom are still in Inkster
and Lansing.  The circumstances surrounding her death and disappearance
are somewhat mysterious to me.  I am told and did once read a copy of
the news article which reported her death. She was in a car accident
shortly after midnight in Spring (I think) of 1962 or 1963.  She had all
seven of her children in the car with her ranging in age from 7 down
to nine months.  she was the only one who died and my ex-husband was
the only other one to receive injuries.  He received lacerations to the
head. I believe that she was in an unmarked grave because her husband
was in prison for robbery.  However, I have not verified this.  My ex-
thinks that she was trying to commit suicide and take the kids with her.
I do not know.  What I do know is that her social security card which
she did have one as I saw it (the first three numbers were 334), must
never have been put to use, nor were there and death benefits received
that I know of .  If there had been wouldn't there be a record of her
in the SSDI?  Unfortunately there is no record of her that I can seem
to find any where. This is the first inkling of hope that I have found.