Meta Adele (Asendorf) Stevens of Allen, TX, passed away on July 18, 2015, at the age of 85. She was born March 15, 1930 in the Bronx, NYC, to Hermann and Katherine (Kuch) Asendorf, immigrants from Germany. Meta graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1946 at the age of 16. She worked as a legal secretary on Wall Street for several years. Meta married Leland Stevens, a vicar at her church in the Bronx, on June 15, 1952. They moved to St. Louis, MO, where Leland completed his seminary training. Leland joined the United States Air Force as a military chaplain in 1953. They were stationed at air force bases in Colorado, NY, Japan, NM, Alaska, and Maryland. Leland retired from the Air Force in 1973 and they served Lutheran congregations in Maryland and New Mexico. Meta was a homemaker but enjoyed working part-time once her children were in school. She worked as the church secretary in Alaska, as a tour guide in Washington D.C., and many years for an optometrist in New Mexico. She worked at the CPH gift shop when Leland took a job as editor of the Lutheran Witness in St. Louis, MO. They retired in Alamogordo, NM, moving to Allen, TX, in 2002, to be closer to their children. Meta loved to dance and sing and was active in all their church choirs. Her family was most important to her and she and Leland never missed a game, concert, play, or any other event in which her children were participating. They also loved to travel and their travels took them around the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe.
She is survived by her children, Kathryn and her husband Roger Verdi, David Stevens and his wife Joanne, Elizabeth Stevens, and Jonathan Stevens and his wife Abigail; grandchildren, Allison, Matthew, Emily, Hannah, Ashleigh, and Michael Stevens; sisters, Katherine Connolly and Etta Asendorf, along with numerous nieces and nephews.
Meta was preceded in death by her husband, Leland, and her parents, Hermann and Katherine Asendorf.
A funeral service will be held Wednesday, July 22, 2015, at 10:30 a.m. at Faith Lutheran Church in Plano, TX. Interment will follow on Thursday, July 23, 2015, at the DFW National Cemetery in Dallas, TX. The family will receive friends during a visitation on Tuesday evening, July 21, 2015, from 7:00-9:00 p.m. at the Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow funeral home in Allen, TX.