Wanda Lee Graves

1933 - 2024

Wanda Lee Graves

February 18, 1933 - April 13, 2024

Sacramento, California - Wanda Lee Graves, of Choctaw heritage, died on April 13th at her home in Sacramento. She was 91.

Wanda Lee spent time at her home in Trinidad, California, where she loved the sea and the people, and displayed redwood art in her yard.

She was born the last of 11 children on a subsistence farm on the outskirts of Norman, Arkansas. When she was young, her mother would drive her in a horse-drawn wagon to the tiny library in Norman, where she checked out books and learned to love reading.

As a young lady, Wanda Lee went to work as a hat check girl at the Stork Club in New York City. She spent two years as a WAVE in the Navy and saw the world. She spent a year in Paris where she loved everything. On her last night in Paris, she went to the opera, which she loved for the rest of her life. In her final year of life, she was set to be listed as a producer of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute at the San Francisco Opera.

She was beautiful and worked as a professional model while young. Wanda Lee was beautiful even in her last year of life. She was a hippie who wrote about life and politics and loathed war. In the 1960s, she started college and earned an AA degree from Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, a bachelor's degree from San Francisco State College, and a master's degree from the University of California Berkeley. She was proud of her education.

Jerry Brown appointed her a member of the Native American Heritage Commission where she led the enactment of the first state law in the country to require Native American cemeteries to be treated with the same respect as white cemeteries. Other states and the federal government followed.

Wanda Lee wrote for the Legislature, and later joined a consulting business with her husband. She loved her cats, her art, and her husband who loves her still.

Wanda Lee is survived by her husband, Steve Duscha, her niece Sheila, and many friends.