E. Ray Stevens

Stevens was born Edmund Ray Stevens on June 20, 1869, in Lake County, Illinois.^[2] His family later moved to Janesville, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1895. As a young man, he was a prolific writer on the problems of government and pushing for progressive solutions. He also worked as a special correspondent for the Milwaukee Sentinel, making trips to Europe to report on the urban European perspective.^[3]

From 1896 to 1903, Stevens and future U.S. Representative Burr W. Jones operated the law firm Jones & Stevens. Additionally, Stevens was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1900. In 1903, Stevens was appointed a Wisconsin circuit court judge by Governor Robert M. La Follette. He was elected to the Supreme Court in 1925 and served as a member until his death.^[4] During his time with the Supreme Court, he was also a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Stevens died at his home in the Nakoma neighborhood, in Madison, Wisconsin, on the morning of August 25, 1930. He suffered a brief illness that resulted in a heart attack.^[5]

Stevens married Kate Sabin of Windsor, Wisconsin. Sabin was a leading Wisconsin educator; she graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1893, served as Dane County superintendent of schools, and was the first female Regent of the University of Wisconsin. ^[6] She also worked as a high school teacher in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and taught at the Milwaukee-Downer College, where her sister, Ellen Clara Sabin was president.^[7] They had three children together, though one died young.