This year, she finally crossed off that achievement.
She and her husband Joe travelled from their home in New Mexico to visit friends in Auckland and to gather information about her father's visit to Dunedin on a United States naval ship in 1925.
On August 11, 1925, seaman Leo McLelland was on board USS Melville, which was in port for 14 days.
The ship also stopped in Wellington and he "fell in love with New Zealand".
"I heard about New Zealand and how wonderful and beautiful it was as a child," she said.
In his old sea chest, she found photographs and postcards from his travels.
There were more mementos from Dunedin than from anywhere else he visited during his four years in the navy, Mrs Danna said.
Among them were pictures of Fryatt St wharf filled with people, both greeting his vessel and bidding it farewell.
"It must have been the whole town," Mrs Danna said.
When in the city, he spent a lot of time at a brewery and with a mystery lady.
"He always said if things got tough in the US, we were leaving and going to New Zealand."
On Saturday, Mr and Mrs Danna spent their one afternoon in the city, as part of a bus tour, conducting research in the Dunedin Public Library.
"We have a grandson called Leo. I would like to pull this together and have a story for him," she said.
Before their trip, she sent a message via the library's website asking if they could help in her research.
The couple arrived to find a collated list of pages from file copies of the Otago Witness for then to look at.
"The people have been wonderful," she said.
Actually being in Dunedin was "like being in a dream" as she was "finally able to make sense of it all", Mrs Danna said.
