Beverly Phyllis Dakan

(August 6, 1924-December 14th, 2025)

Beverly Dakan passed away at her home in Laguna Niguel, California on December 14th from cardiac arrest. She was 101. She is survived by her partner, Randy Van den Bos, whom she knew for 49 years, and her sons Stephen Hunt of Hyampom, CA, Mark Dreessen of Chicago and Dana Dreessen of La Selva Beach, CA. She also had 3 grandchildren Samuel, Ramzi, and Amina Dreessen, one great grandchild Zaina Shea Dreessen, and cousins Dawn, Melody, Fred, Ken, and Roy Jones.

Beverly had many legal names during her lifetime. She was born Beverly von Birkenstock in San Francisco to Norman von Birkenstock and Ruth (Hogue) Joseph, dropped the "von" during World War 2, and attended Polytechnic High School where she was president of her class of 1942 (Beverly Birkenstock). Her first marriage was annulled, and she then married Preston Hunt Jr. (Beverly Hunt) and had Stephen in 1947, divorced and married the artist and stamp designer Norman Todhunter (Beverly Todhunter), had Mark and Dana in 1954 and 1955, then divorced and married Edward Dreessen (Beverly Dreessen) in 1959. She then married and divorced Robert Dakan. She then found true love with Randy.

Beverly was very artistic throughout her long lifetime and began by designing and making her own clothing, for example, and was once named the "Best Dressed Woman in Marin County" in the 1940s. She worked for the Matson Lines shipping company in San Francisco. Her third husband "Tigger" Hunt was the president of the California and Washington Food Company, later bought by Birds Eye. She bought, designed, renovated, decorated, or rebuilt her homes during her lifetime in Mill Valley, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Aptos, and Gold Run, California. She loved antiques and collectibles and for many years in the 1970s owned an antique store named "Paraphernalia" in Los Gatos, until one day she was robbed at gunpoint and her wedding ring was stolen. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and the ring was insured. Randy chased the robber.

Young Beverly moved effortlessly across a tennis court or swimming pool or a beach. Her tennis serves and groundstrokes were hard and flat, and her aim was true. Dick Skeen, a top world tennis player of the 1940s, was a good friend of hers in the 1960s. Her love of animals was strong. Her many dogs, mostly German Shepherds, had names ranging from Dreist, to Edward, to Shadow, to Smokey, Checkers, Zeus and Tina. One of her last dog loves was a 200 pound Newfoundland named Sinbad. In her last years at age 100 she and Randy would chat it up with any and all dog owners on the promenade at the Dana Point Marina. She also loved and fed pet pigeons and peacocks and the occasional cougar or bear. She crossed out recipes for pigeon in other people's cookbooks and wrote "No!! My pet!"

Beverly loved her sometimes far flung sons living in Central and South America and Egypt and Germany, as well as her animals and possessed a wonderful sense of beauty which she applied to her wardrobe, gardens, plantings, home decor, antiques, her prints and the objects d'art that filled her homes. Watching her gift wrap or arrange flowers or clothing was often astounding. Her sense of history and far away places and her notions of how spirituality and history wove together into a river of human experience impressed and sometimes mystified others. She also loved theosophy and talking fancifully about the non-existent continents of Lemuria and Atlantis as much as the real ones of Africa and Eurasia. Non-existent to us, but not to her. She saw no contradiction in honoring presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Obama as equally great, or with describing different countries or peoples as more or less "evolved". Her ability to fix, design, or otherwise control her physical environment was nuanced, and excellent, and in another generation, she could have been successful as an interior decorator or even an architect. She was never so happy as when she was building an addition or cabana, from the pouring of the concrete to the shingling, working alongside the men she hired. She could hang sheetrock herself, set a post, or hammer a 2x4 as needed, and was barely 5 feet tall for most of her life. She would set her jaw, and just do it. She would smile and exclaim at the smell of fresh wood at the lumberyard. She had joie d'vivre.

Beverly was beautiful, youthful, athletic, vivacious and aesthetic almost to her last breath, at 101. The photos prove it. Below is Bev at 99.5 years, above at 40 years old.

If desired, send a memorial gift to the ASPCA at: aspca.org/donate.