William Stevenson

Born in Chicago, Illinois, was a graduate of Andover and Princeton University before winning a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, where he studied law.

President of Oberlin College

In 1946, Stevenson succeeded Ernest Hatch Wilkins as president of Oberlin College. He held the post until 1960.

In 1937, Stevenson bought Buttonwood Manor in the North Stamford section of Stamford, Connecticut, an 1809 Colonial-style house. When Stevenson and his wife went to England during World War II, they rented the house to Dorothy Fields, a renowned lyricist, according to the columnist and war correspondent Ernie Pyle.

Stevenson was the father of U.S. Representative Helen Stevenson Meyner, who served for two terms, from 1975 to 1979. She was the wife of two-term New Jersey Gov. Robert B. Meyner. His other daughter, Priscilla, married Richard Hunt, a Harvard professor and the university's marshal. Stevenson also was a cousin of Vice-President Adlai E. Stevenson, presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, Senator Adlai Stevenson III, and actor McLean Stevenson.

Legal career

After returning to the United States, he was an assistant U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York in the 1920s and, in 1931, founded the prominent New York law partnership of Debevoise, Stevenson, Plimpton and Page, now Debevoise & Plimpton L.L.P.