MARIAN LEVIN

LEVIN Marian Karen Bloomquist Levin On December 6, 2019, Mrs. Marian "Karen" Bloomquist Levin, of Palm Beach, FL, and Chevy Chase, MD, passed away peacefully in her Florida home from complications of old age. She and her husband, Gilbert V. Levin, had just celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary. On January 4 Karen would have been 100 years old. The couple have spent winters in Palm Beach since the mid-seventies, becoming Florida residents in 2005. An only child, Karen was an "Army Brat," and attended some 12 different schools as her service family moved from assignment to assignment, including a stint in the Philippines. Graduating from Lewis and Clarke High School in Spokane, Washington, she entered the University of Washington at Seattle. After her first year, she transferred to Vassar College, where she graduated in 1941, as an English major. Karen went to work as a junior proof-reader at United Press International in New York City, soon becoming a writer. In 1942, she joined Newsweek magazine as a writer and, then, reporter. In 1943, she transferred to the Washington Bureau of Newsweek, where her boss was Ernest Lindley, Bureau Chief. There, she worked for Ben Bradley. Under the pen name of Karen Salisbury, she reported on events in science, medicine and the military. In the course of her career there, she interviewed many notables and, over her years there, wrote scores of cover stories, interviewing celebrities, such as Jacqueline Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Chuck Yeager (She published the first story on Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier), and Omar Bradley. In 1952, she interviewed Gilbert Levin, then a public health engineer in the Washington, DC, Health Department. They married October 25, 1953, and began their married life in the District of Columbia. Karen continued working at Newsweek until 1961. At a Newsweek Christmas party she introduced her husband to Keith Glennan, NASA Administrator, resulting in Gilbert designing the first of experiments sent to Mars seeking life. Mrs. Levin retired upon the birth of the couple's third child. Six months later she went to work at the National Institute of Mental Health. In 1968, joined her husband's newly founded biotechnology firm, Biospherics Inc. There, she established the Science Writing Division, which ultimately had 750 employees doing information work under contract to the National Cancer Institute, other government agencies and pharmaceutical companies. She became a Vice President of the Company, and served on its Board of Directors. In 1995, the Washington Post cited her as "the third most powerful businesswoman in the DC metro area." Mrs. Levin retired from the Company in 2008. The Levins had three children, two sons, Ron and Henry, and a daughter, Carol. Mrs. Levin, and her husband, Gilbert, were avid sailors of the Chesapeake Bay for some 50 years. Karen leaves behind her husband, Gilbert; her son, Ron and partner Sue Smith; and son Henry with wife Susan Vitale, their daughter Gigi Levin, and son Ari Levin; and her daughter, Carol Sanchez, who, with her husband, Michael Sanchez, have sons Benjamin and David and daughters Jessica and Angela. Memorial services are private.