John Paul Stevens

When he retired in 2010 at the age of 90, Justice Stevens was the second-oldest and third-longest-serving justice ever to sit on the court. His 35 years on the United States Supreme Court transformed him, improbably, from a Republican antitrust lawyer into the outspoken leader of the court’s liberal wing. John Paul Stevens, Associate Justice, was born in Chicago, Illinois, April 20, 1920. He married Maryan Mulholland, and has four children - John Joseph (deceased), Kathryn, Elizabeth Jane, and Susan Roberta. He received an A.B. from the University of Chicago, and a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law. He served in the United States Navy from 1942–1945, and was a law clerk to Justice Wiley Rutledge of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1947 Term. He was admitted to law practice in Illinois in 1949. He was Associate Counsel to the Subcommittee on the Study of Monopoly Power of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1951–1952, and a member of the Attorney General’s National Committee to Study Antitrust Law, 1953–1955. He was Second Vice President of the Chicago Bar Association in 1970. From 1970–1975, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. President Ford nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat December 19, 1975. In 1942 he married Elizabeth Jane Sheeren, with whom he had a son and three daughters. The couple divorced in 1979, and Justice Stevens married Maryan Mulholland Simon, a dietitian, the next year. She died in 2015. His son, John Joseph, died of cancer in 1996, and his daughter Kathryn preceded him in death. He is survived by two daughters, Elizabeth Jane Sesemann and Susan Roberta Mullen; nine grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.