Martha Lanier

1928 - 2022

Martha Shorter "Mimi" Stephens Lanier, widow, mother and grandmother, died Saturday, March 16, 2022. She was 93 and died after several years of ill health. A resident of Birmingham, Ala., Mrs. Lanier was born Sept. 3, 1928, to Chester Oliver Stephens and Martha Shorter Hamilton Stephens in Chattanooga Tenn., and was blessed with two older brothers. As a young girl, she had listened to and sung along with the weekly radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, and imagined that she was on stage. She was raised in the First Presbyterian Church of Chattanooga, where she also graduated from the Girls Preparatory School, before completing her formal education at Hollins College (now Hollins University) in Roanoke, Va., where she majored in French. After graduation, she wrote for The Chattanooga Times as a staff reporter and columnist (penning "Among those Present" under the byline of "Mimi Stephens"), and "reigned" as queen of Chattanooga's Cotton Ball in 1954. In 1956, she married her husband, Monro B. Lanier II, her forever "knight in shining armor", which remained true for her throughout their 48 year marriage. After the honeymoon, she moved to Birmingham, Ala., and subsequently the family moved to Pittsburgh over Christmas in 1965, where she and the family resided in Sewickley until 1989. Her time in Sewickley was punctuated by a three year stint in Montreal, before she and her husband returned to Birmingham in 1989. She dearly loved Hollins University, where she served on the Alumnae Board, and also as president of the Hollins Alumnae clubs in Chattanooga, Tenn., Birmingham, Ala., and Pittsburgh. Hollins presented her the Rath Award for her many years of activities supporting the school. She was active in Sewickley's Child Health Association, served as regent of the John Parke Curtis chapter of the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution), was a member of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, headed up the Village Garden Club in Sewickley and was active as a member of Pittsburgh's First Presbyterian Church. In Birmingham, she was a member of South Highland Presbyterian Church, the Little Garden Club and the Canterbury Club and a lifelong member of the Junior League. Shortly after first moving to Birmingham, she joined the Junior League Choral Group, and then rejoined it after returning to Birmingham in 1989. As an adult, she traveled to New York City with the Junior League Choral Group, and sang with them at Carnegie Hall under the direction of John Rutter, fulfilling a lifelong dream. Additionally, she traveled extensively with her husband, the love of her life, throughout Europe and Asia, and enjoyed spending almost every summer of her life at the small family cottage in Mentone, Ala., atop Lookout Mountain. It was at Mentone where she met her future husband, and similarly it was at Mentone where her parents had met. Mentone was her Shangri-La. Even though she stayed very busy with volunteer activities, her God and her family always came first. Ebullient by nature, she believed that there was nothing that couldn't be improved with a smile, sometimes a silly joke, a hug and always words of encouragement. Indeed laughter was always present under her roof. The morning of her death, she was singing a hymn when she paused to take a breath that did not come. She lived as she died, with a song in her heart and on her lips. She was predeceased by her parents, her husband (2004), and her two brothers, Chester Oliver Stephens Jr. and Gerry Underwood Stephens. She is survived by her son, Monro B. Lanier III, and daughter-in-law, Diane Ochs Lanier, of Huntsville, Ala.; her daughter, Martha Shorter Lanier Dougherty, and son-in-law, Geoffrey Dougherty, of Cleveland, Ohio; her granddaughters, Harper Longfellow Lanier and Elizabeth Hamilton Lanier, of Huntsville, Ala.; and sisters-in-laws, Lucie Estes Carter Stephens (Mrs. Gerry Underwood Stephens), of Chattanooga, Tenn., and Margaret Thompson Stephens (Mrs. Chester Oliver Stephens), of Walters, Okla.; and numerous nieces, nephews and their children, plus distant cousin Jerome del Moral, of Paris France, whom she loved as though he was her other son. Services will be under the direction of RIDEOUT'S VALLEY CHAPEL, in Homewood, Ala., 205-879-3401, April 30, 2022. Further information about time and location will be provided as they are determined. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Cornerstone Schools of Alabama.