Madeleine ‘Lani’ Stephens Valentine
September 28, 1939–September 9, 2026
Madeleine “Lani” Stephens Valentine died the night of September 9, 2026, in Marin County, California, where she had lived for 60 years. She was surrounded by loving family members when she passed.
Lani was born on September 28, 1939, in Mobile, Alabama, the eldest child of Ellen Story Wood and Warren C. Stephens. At a very young age, her family moved west to Hillsborough, CA, where Lani spent her childhood. She graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Menlo Park in 1956 and graduated from Trinity University in Washington, D.C., in 1960 with a Bachelor of Arts in English literature and a minor in philosophy.
Following college, Lani returned to San Francisco and worked in the Public Relations and Advertising Department of American President Lines. On Valentine’s Day 1966, she married Robert (Bob) Valentine and the two made their home on Corinthian Island in Belvedere, where they raised two children, Tory and Bob, Jr.
Lani grew up at the cusp of the Feminist movement in the 1960’s, and though grounded in the traditional role and values of a stay-at-home mom, through civic and community service she found leadership opportunities and satisfaction.
Lani’s early volunteer work centered on her children’s school and sports activities, serving as president of the Parents Guild and the Tiburon Peninsula Club, and as a docent with the Audubon Canyon Ranch’s Terwilliger Nature Guides program. Over the following decades, her community involvement grew to include the Junior League of San Francisco, where she served as president from 1977 to 1978 and later received the Spirit of the League Award in 1998; the United Way of the Bay Area, as a board member and director; the Marin chapter of Catholic Charities; the American Red Cross; the Marin General Hospital Foundation; the Marin Council of Agencies; and Marin Open Space. In the late 1980s, her focus turned to homelessness in Marin, and she spent three years on the Marin Homeless Commission, one of them as chair, work that helped bring about a year-round shelter at Hamilton.
In 1988, Lani was elected to the Belvedere City Council and served two terms, twice as mayor. She chaired the city’s year-long centennial celebration in 1996 and was named Belvedere’s Citizen of the Year the following year.
Her husband, Bob, passed away in 2015, a few months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary. Together they traveled widely, sharing a love of skiing at Squaw Valley and countless fly-fishing trips to the high Sierras, New Zealand, Alaska, and Montana. Their time spent at their vineyard property in southern Mendocino County was very special to them.
On her own, Lani was an enthusiastic athlete, playing competitive team tennis at the Tiburon Peninsula Club and Harbor Point, before taking up golf at the age of 60 and joining the women’s golfing group at Indian Valley Golf Club. Duplicate bridge captivated her as well, and in November 2017 she achieved the rank of Bronze Life Master with the American Contract Bridge League. She belonged to an investment club, tended her rose bushes and a summer vegetable garden, and was a longtime member and past president (1999-2001) of the Francisca Club in San Francisco. She was also a devoted patron of the San Francisco Ballet, American Conservatory Theater, and the Marin Theatre Company, and she followed the Met Opera faithfully via simulcast at the Lark Theater. She was an avid reader, belonging to several book clubs and running the library at Villa Marin during the later years of her life.
A lifelong practicing Catholic, Lani was a parishioner at St. Hilary Church in Tiburon since 1966. She was also a two-time breast-cancer survivor.
Lani is survived by her daughter, Ellen-Story Valentine Thompson (John), and her son, Robert Ortiz Valentine, Jr. (Mimi), and by four granddaughters, Elise and Jules Thompson and Laura and Emelia Valentine. Also surviving her are her brothers Paul Stephens (Elle) and Jeffrey Wilmore (Elizabeth), and her sister, Laura Vail Evers. She was predeceased by her husband, Bob, and her brothers W. Clayton Stephens and Mark Stephens.
A Memorial Mass will take place on Monday, September 28, at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, 114 King Street, Larkspur, at 10:00 am. Reception to follow at Perry’s Larkspur.
Donations in Lani’s memory may be directed to Homeward Bound of Marin, Novato, CA.