Veronika (Lebedeff) Meekison died unexpectedly and suddenly because of a tragic fall at her residence in Springdale Village in Mesa on June 24, 2023. She was born on January 16, 1937, in Moscow Russia, the daughter of the late Alexander and Maria (Pavelko) Lebedeff, and sister of her late older brother, Sergej. Her father was a professor of geology and mining engineering at the University of Moscow. In October 1941, when Veronika was 4 years old, her family’s life was disrupted by the approaching German army. Stalin, fearing the loss of the university faculty, had the professors and their families divided into several groups and dispatched to different locales within the country. Veronika’s family was sent to the Caucasus which was overtaken by the Germans in 1942. The entire group of educators and their families were taken by boxcar to Berlin where they lived until 1944 and her father worked as an assistant to a German paleontologist at the university in Berlin. These were difficult times with the frequent air raids and hurried dashes to the subway station that served as a bomb shelter. Her father and mother did not want to be repatriated to the then USSR for they were aware that the family would be broken apart and sent to different locations. With the help of a Catholic priest they obtained papers that changed their nationality to Yugoslav and moved away from Berlin to the village of Dautmergen , in the southwestern part of Germany, where they lived with other displaced families until May 1949, when they emigrated to Brazil. They resided in Rio de Janeiro until August 1960 and came to the United States, settling in San Francisco. Veronika’s early education was as a youngster in Germany, followed by middle and high school at a Catholic school in Rio de Janeiro operated by German nuns. When she arrived in San Franciso she continued with her educational pursuits and obtained her BA from San Francisco State and her MA from the University of California (Berkeley). She had a beautiful voice that was classically trained and sang for several seasons with the San Francisco Opera Chorus in her younger years. After finishing her studies at Berkeley, she obtained a position as a Russian language instructor at he Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA. It was there she met and, in 1977, married her husband, Malcolm, who survived her. She then became an Army wife and went with Malcolm to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for 3 years where they were joined by Malcolm’s children. She was a wonderful mother-in-law to the four. After the tour in Saudi Arabia, they were assigned to Vicenza, Italy for 2 years before Malcolm’s retirement from the US Army when they settled in Pensacola, FL. Veronika loved to travel and with her husband enjoyed the RV lifestyle for 5 years as they visited family and friends in 46 of the 48 contiguous states until 2010 when they settled in Mesa. She is survived by her husband, Malcolm, and her stepchildren: Teresa Parr (Bloomfield Hills, MI), Sandra Johnson (Pueblo, CO), and Malcolm III (Brunswick, GA), along with 6 granddaughters, 2 grandsons, and 3 great grandchildren and a sister-in-law, Jean Lebedeff (Norwalk, CT). She will be sorely missed along with her beautiful, unique accent reflecting the Russian, German and Portuguese influence accumulated during her youth.