He came home from fighting a bloody war in Europe a century ago, and made his living as a postal worker, but made a life as a collector of insects and observer of nature. By the time of his passing in 1980, his collection included 5,000 specimens and numerous notebooks that took up an entire room of his family’s home in would become part of West Valley City.
“It was like he had this reverence for life. He just loved learning and recording everything he learned,” recalled Day’s granddaughter Becky Rueckert on Saturday at the Natural History Museum of Utah, which has incorporated Day’s bugs into its holdings.