Marvoline Landram Stevens

Marvoline Landram Stevens

Marvoline (Marva) Landram Stevens, 95, died of natural causes on Thursday, February 16, 2017 in Alexandria, Virginia.

She was born in Duncan, Oklahoma on October 28, 1921. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the FBI began recruiting great numbers of personnel from all over the United States to move to Washington, D.C. to work in their offices to assist in the war efforts. In 1942, Marva was one of those chosen to move to Washington, D.C. and work for the FBI, serving in the FBI’s Special Photography Research Division, where she helped to decode intercepted microdot messages used by German spies. Marva met her future husband, Wilbur G. (Steve) Stevens, of Plainfield, Iowa, who had also been recruited to work at the Bureau. Marva and Steve married on June 6, 1943. In 1944, her husband joined the U.S. Navy and they moved to Seattle, Washington to await his deployment on the USS Lunga Point to the Pacific Theater.

After her husband returned from WWII in 1945, Marva and her family returned to Washington, D.C., where her husband resumed work at the FBI Laboratory, and after completing his college degree, became a Special Agent at the FBI. Marva raised four children, found time to work at the Alexandria Gazette newspaper and later as a secretary to the Dean of the Law School at George Mason University. She was a founding member of the Northern Virginia Chapter of the Society of FBI Alumni. She also served as chair of the group’s Metro Chapter from 1977 to 1979 and from 1999 till 2001. Despite health challenges, she continued to attend the group’s luncheons up until her 95th birthday.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 52 years, who died in 1995; her parents Louis Worthington Landram and Pearly Mae; her brothers Louis and Joseph, and sisters, Irene, Freda and Bonnie. She is survived by her son, Douglass Stevens (Yolanda) of Las Vegas, NV; daughter Pamela Keller (Perry) of Alexandria, VA, Kathleen McArthur (Bob Manware) of Alexandria, VA; and daughter Patricia Bersano (David) of Powhatan, VA. She is also survived by five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Ms. Stevens will be laid to rest at Quantico National Cemetery on February 27, 2017.

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