Vera Lidia-Regina Beever

Passed peacefully on October 29, 2014 in Alexandria, Va. Of Austro-Hungarian-Dalmatian heritage, she was born in Trieste, Italy, on Oct. 24, 1924. Her parents were Matteo and Antonia Livich. While growing up in Trieste, she experienced the rise of Fascism in Italy and the Nazi occupation in WWII. As members of the local resistance movement, she and her mother, at great risk, hid, fed, and helped dozens of Jewish families and others escape arrest by the Nazis. She herself was arrested, and escaped only to be rearrested and transported to an internment camp in Austria. Her mother escaped arrest by joining resistance fighters in the hills outside Trieste. Liberated by American/British troops in April 1945, Vera returned to Trieste, was hospitalized, and recovered her health. She, her brother, Mario, (a prisoner–of–war for 5 years in Sardinia), and her mother were reunited by the Int’l Red Cross in late 1945. They slowly rebuilt their lives. In 1951 she met and married Roger Beever, a member of an elite US Army unit stationed at the Miramar Castle in Trieste. His long career in the US Army, USAID/State Dept., and the US Treasury took them to Germany, Turkey, Liberia, South Vietnam, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and they traveled extensively. Roger Beever, known as the Ambassador of Good Will, a dedicated Treasury USREP/JECOR administrative officer, in Saudi Arabia for 13 years, passed away in 1995. Vera Lidia Regina loved Italian Opera, cooking, entertaining, Asian and Middle Eastern art, was a talented clothing designer, and spoke several languages. She had a splendid sense of style and fashion and had many international friends. She is survived by two sons: Roger Beever and his life-partner Anne of Alexandria, Va., and Robbinroger and Anne Isabelle Beever of Bonn, Germany and Beaucaire, France, and two grandsons: Roger Alexander Beever and Roman Constantin Beever; Memorial Service: Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, 7 p.m., at the Demaine Funeral Home, 520 S. Washington St., Alex., Va. 22314; In lieu of flowers, please donate to your local hospice. Interment at Arlington Nat. Cemetery at a later date; online tributes: www.demainefuneralhomes.com