Laura Lilian Brandt, Class of 1927, was born January 23, 1906 to Carl and Stella Shuman Brandt in Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts. Her father was the owner of the Brandt Leather Company.

Brandt attended Miss May's School in Boston, Massachusetts prior to enrollment at Radcliffe College. She transferred to Smith College after her first year at Radcliffe. She was a part of the first group from Smith to spend her junior year abroad in Paris, France, which she considered "one of the best and happiest years of [her] life". While at Smith she was a member of the French Club, served as a Student Adviser, and majored in French. She graduated in 1927.

After leaving Smith, Brandt, worked at Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., W.W. Norton, and Macy's as an editor in New York. She married George Stevens in 1930 and had two daughters, one of whom attended Smith (Carol Stevens Kner, Class of 1958). In the 1950s, she worked at Princeton University. She served as the volunteer director of Recording for the Blind and was a founder of the Princeton Community Homemaker Services. In 1972 she helped to organize the Meals on Wheels program, where she volunteered for ten years. She died February 14, 1989 in Doylestown, PA.