Beverly Anne Stevens

Dec 21, 1943 -

Oct 31, 2023

Beverly Anne Stevens, 79, passed away at home on the sunny afternoon of Oct. 31, 2023, surrounded by family.

Beverly was born on Dec. 21, 1943, in Schenectady, N.Y., the oldest of eight children. She graduated from State University of New York at Buffalo with a degree in art education.

Beverly first traveled to Alaska for vacation and decided it was home. She returned to New York, packed her belongings and made the cross-country trek back to Alaska alone in a vehicle with no working radio.

She worked at the Anchorage Daily News before embarking on a 21-year career teaching art for the Anchorage School District, retiring in 1990.

Beverly married Milton Stevens in 1973 in Anchorage, Alaska, and together they built a life that read like an adventure novel about the Last Frontier. They hunted and fished in remote corners of the state at a time when the wilderness of Alaska was mostly untouched.

While their home was in Anchorage, their hearts belonged to Prince William Sound, the Denali Highway and especially the Kenai River, where they built their dream recreation home and fished with generations of family and countless friends.

Beverly was extremely proud of raising her two daughters with the same sense of adventure and love for Alaska. The three Stevens women even formed a strong, all-female crew working the family's commercial halibut fishing business.

Beverly's other love was dog mushing, which she began after retirement and continued for more than 25 years, winning many competitive sprint races. She prided herself on her small dog team that lived in the house, and wrote and illustrated two children's books about her dog team family.

Beverly's talents and creativity touched many lives through her watercolor paintings, leatherwork, jewelry, gardening, photography and homemade pizzas. Her crafts were sold at local bazaars for decades, and she designed the 1995 Anchorage Fur Rendezvous pin and the 2018 Alaska Railroad annual print.

Beverly is survived by her husband, Milton Stevens; daughters, Monica Moser and Tara Stevens; sons-in-law, Tim Moser and Kelly Ryan; grandchildren, Jade and Porter Moser and Alice Ryan; sisters, Susan Repko and Theresa Fingerhut of New York, and Kathy Bunn of Florida; and brothers, Joseph Flis of New York and James Flis of New Hampshire. She is preceded in death by her mother, Leona Pfisterer (Flis); stepfather, Fritz Pfisterer; father, Joseph Flis; brother, Robert Flis; and sister, Monica Flis.

In her final days, Beverly shared a relatable quote from the 2016 obituary of distinguished writer, Eva Saulitis: "There is nothing more I needed in this life, except more of what was already given to me. It was a good day to die, because it was such a good life to have lived."