Editing Adlai Stevenson II (section)

==Early life and education==
[[File:Stevenson House (7440859406).jpg|thumb|left|Stevenson's childhood home in Bloomington, Illinois]]
Adlai Ewing Stevenson II<ref>{{cite news
| url        = https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BW-F3G6-M?mode=g&cc=2001287&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQGL7-GR8B
| title     = Los Angeles County Birth Record for Adlai E. Stevenson
| date      = February 5, 1900
| work      = California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994
| access-date = May 22, 2022}}</ref> was born in [[Los Angeles]], California, in a neighborhood that is now designated as the [[North University Park Historic District]]. His home and birthplace at 2639 Monmouth Avenue has been designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://preservation.lacity.org/files/HCMDatabase041612.pdf |title=Historic-Cultural Monument List, City Declared Monuments |access-date=June 19, 2012 |archive-date=February 1, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201192238/http://preservation.lacity.org/files/HCMDatabase041612.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> He was a member of a prominent [[Illinois]] [[Stevenson family|political family]].  His grandfather and namesake [[Adlai Stevenson I|Adlai Stevenson]] was [[Vice President of the United States]] under President [[Grover Cleveland]] from 1893 to 1897.  His father, [[Lewis Stevenson (politician)|Lewis Stevenson]], never held an elected office, but was appointed [[Illinois Secretary of State]] (1914–1917) and was considered a strong contender for the Democratic [[Vice president|vice-presidential]] nomination in 1928.  A maternal great-grandfather, [[Jesse W. Fell]], had been a close friend and campaign manager for [[Abraham Lincoln]] in his 1858 US Senate race; Stevenson often referred to Fell as his favorite ancestor.<ref>(Martin, p. 89)</ref>  Stevenson's eldest son, [[Adlai Stevenson III|Adlai E. Stevenson III]], became a [[United States Senate|U.S. Senator]] from Illinois (1970–1981). His mother was Helen Davis Stevenson, and he had an older sister, Elizabeth Stevenson Ives, an author who was called "Buffie". Actor [[McLean Stevenson]] was a [[Cousin chart|second cousin once removed]].<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/TV/9602/stevenson_obit/index.html | work=CNN | title='MASH' star McLean Stevenson dies | access-date=April 23, 2010 | archive-date=May 23, 2010 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100523094409/http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/TV/9602/stevenson_obit/index.html | url-status=live }}</ref>  He was the nephew by marriage of novelist [[Mary Borden]], and she assisted in the writing of some of his political speeches.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.maryborden.com/Biography/biog.html | title=Mary Borden &#124; an Extraordinary Life &#124; Mary Borden: A Woman of Two Wars | access-date=May 15, 2014 | archive-date=April 23, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423235637/http://www.maryborden.com/Biography/biog.html | url-status=live }}</ref>

Stevenson was raised in the city of [[Bloomington, Illinois]]; his family was a member of Bloomington's upper class and lived in one of the city's well-to-do neighborhoods. On December 30, 1912, at the age of twelve, Stevenson accidentally killed Ruth Merwin, a 16-year-old friend, while demonstrating [[Foot drill|drill]] technique with a rifle, inadvertently left loaded, during a party at the Stevenson home.<ref>{{cite news
| url       = https://www.nytimes.com/1912/12/31/archives/killed-in-stevenson-home-girl-shot-accidentally-by-former-vice.html
| title       = Killed in Stevenson Home; Girl Shot Accidentally by Former Vice President's Grandson
| date       = December 31, 1912
| page       = 1
| work       = [[The New York Times]]
| access-date       = November 3, 2007
| archive-date       = July 26, 2018
| archive-url       = https://web.archive.org/web/20180726172442/https://www.nytimes.com/1912/12/31/archives/killed-in-stevenson-home-girl-shot-accidentally-by-former-vice.html
| url-status       = live
}}</ref> Stevenson was devastated by the accident and rarely mentioned or discussed it as an adult, even with his wife and children.<ref>(Baker, pp. 228–232)</ref> However, in 1955 Stevenson heard about a woman whose son had experienced a similar tragedy. He wrote to her that she should tell her son that "he must now live for two", which Stevenson's friends took to be a reference to the shooting incident.<ref>(McKeever, p. 31)</ref>

Stevenson left Bloomington High School after his junior year and attended [[University High School (Normal)|University High School]] in [[Normal, Illinois]], Bloomington's "twin city", just to the north. He then went to boarding school in Connecticut at [[Choate Rosemary Hall|The Choate School]] (now Choate Rosemary Hall), where he played on the tennis team, acted in plays, and was elected editor-in-chief of ''The Choate News'', the school newspaper.<ref>(McKeever, p. 38)</ref> Upon his graduation from Choate in 1918,<ref>{{cite web | title=Stevenson Fellow Advocates for Public Service | website=The Choate News | date=March 31, 2017 | url=http://thechoatenews.choate.edu/2017/03/31/stevenson-fellow-advocates-public-service/ | access-date=June 19, 2020 | archive-date=June 16, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200616213333/http://thechoatenews.choate.edu/2017/03/31/stevenson-fellow-advocates-public-service/ | url-status=live }}</ref> he enlisted in the [[United States Naval Reserve]] for [[World War I]]. He served as a [[seaman apprentice]] while undergoing training but the [[Armistice of November 11, 1918]] ended the war while he was still in training, and he was discharged as a [[seaman second class]] in January 1919.<ref>{{cite book | title=Department of State Publication: General foreign policy series | issue=187 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vDMvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA43 | access-date=February 28, 2020 | page=43 | archive-date=March 31, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230331153729/https://books.google.com/books?id=vDMvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA43 | url-status=live }}</ref>

He attended [[Princeton University]], becoming managing editor of ''[[The Daily Princetonian]]'', a member of the [[American Whig-Cliosophic Society]],<ref>[http://theprince.princeton.edu/princetonperiodicals/cgi-bin/princetonperiodicals?a=d&d=Princetonian19750725-01.2.174&srpos=7&e=-------en-20--1--txt-IN-stevenson----# Daily Princetonian – Special Class of 1979 Issue 25 July 1975 — Princeton Periodicals] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308131436/https://theprince.princeton.edu/princetonperiodicals/cgi-bin/princetonperiodicals?a=d&d=Princetonian19750725-01.2.174&srpos=7&e=-------en-20--1--txt-IN-stevenson---- |date=March 8, 2021 }}. Theprince.princeton.edu (July 25, 1975). Retrieved on 2013-07-26.</ref> a member of the [[Quadrangle Club]], and received a B.A. degree in 1922 in literature and history.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/97/q3/0808-stevenson.html |title=Mudd Library Completes Catalog, Preservation of Adlai E. Stevenson Papers |publisher=Princeton University |date=August 8, 1997 |access-date=December 20, 2011 |archive-date=November 19, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111119183253/http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/97/q3/0808-stevenson.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Under prodding from his father, he then went to [[Harvard Law School]], but found law to be "uninteresting", and withdrew after failing several classes.<ref>(McKeever, pp. 45–46)</ref> He returned to Bloomington where he wrote for the family newspaper, ''[[The Daily Pantagraph]]'', which was founded by his maternal great-grandfather Jesse Fell. The ''Pantagraph'', which had one of the largest circulations of any newspaper in Illinois outside the Chicago area, was a main source of the Stevenson family's wealth.<ref>(McKeever, p. 60)</ref> Following his mother's death in 1935, Adlai inherited one-quarter of the ''Pantagraph's'' stock, providing him with a large, dependable source of income for the rest of his life.<ref>(Baker, p. 246, p. 257)</ref>

A year after leaving Harvard, Stevenson became interested in the law again after talking to Supreme Court Justice [[Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.]] When he returned home to Bloomington, he decided to finish his degree at [[Northwestern University School of Law]], attending classes during the week and returning to Bloomington on the weekends to write for the ''Pantagraph''. Stevenson received his [[Juris Doctor|J.D.]] degree from Northwestern in 1926 and passed the Illinois state bar examination the same year. He obtained a position at [[Sidley Austin|Cutting, Moore & Sidley]], one of Chicago's oldest and most prestigious law firms.<ref>(Baker, p. 317)</ref>

===Family===
[[File:Adlai E. Stevenson II's home in Mettawa.jpg|thumb|[[Adlai E. Stevenson II Farm|Stevenson's home]] in [[Libertyville, Illinois]] (now [[Mettawa, Illinois]])]]

On December 1, 1928, Stevenson married [[Ellen Stevenson|Ellen Borden]], a well-to-do socialite. The young couple soon became popular and familiar figures on the Chicago social scene; they especially enjoyed attending and hosting costume parties.<ref>(Martin, pp. 154–155)</ref> They had three sons: [[Adlai Stevenson III]], who would become a U.S. Senator; Borden Stevenson, and John Fell Stevenson. In 1935, Adlai and Ellen purchased a {{convert|70|acre|ha|adj=on}} tract of land along the [[Des Plaines River]] near [[Libertyville, Illinois]], a wealthy suburb of Chicago.<ref name="McKeever, pp. 67-68">(McKeever, pp. 67-68)</ref> They built a home on the property and it served as Stevenson's official residence for the rest of his life.<ref name="McKeever, pp. 67-68"/> Although he spent relatively little time there due to his career, Stevenson did consider the estate to be his home, and in the 1950s, he was often called "The Man from Libertyville" by the national news media.<ref>(Baker, p. 279)</ref> Stevenson also purchased a farm in northwestern Illinois, just outside [[Galena, Illinois|Galena]], where he frequently rode horses and kept some cattle.{{citation needed|date=July 2024}}

On December 12, 1949, Adlai and Ellen were divorced; their son Adlai III later recalled that "There hadn't been a good relationship for a long time. I remember her [Ellen] as the unreasonable one, not only with Dad, but with us and the servants. I was embarrassed by her peremptory way with servants."<ref>(McKeever, p. 141)</ref> Several of Stevenson's biographers have written that his wife suffered from mental illness: "Incidents that went from petulant to bizarre to nasty generally have been described without placing them in the context of the progression of [her] increasingly serious mental illness. It was an illness that those closest to her – including Adlai for long after the divorce – were slow and reluctant to recognize. Hindsight, legal proceedings, and psychiatric testimony now make understandable the behavior that baffled and saddened her family."<ref>(McKeever, pp. 65–66)</ref> Stevenson did not remarry after his divorce, but instead dated a number of prominent women throughout the rest of his life, including [[Alicia Patterson]], [[Marietta Tree]],<ref>(McKeever, pp. 142, 272)</ref> and Betty Beale.<ref>{{cite news
 |url          = http://www.georgetowner.com/articles/2012/sep/05/those-were-days/
 |title        = Those Were the Days: Betty Beale and the Party World of Post-War Washington
 |last         = Evers
 |first        = Donna
 |date         = September 5, 2012
 |work         = The Georgetowner
 |access-date  = December 18, 2013
 |archive-date = December 19, 2013
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20131219065325/http://www.georgetowner.com/articles/2012/sep/05/those-were-days/
 |url-status   = live
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
| url       = https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/AR2006060702167.html
| title       = Washington Star Society Columnist Betty Beale, 94
| date       = June 8, 2006
| newspaper       = [[The Washington Post]]
| access-date       = December 18, 2013
| archive-date       = September 12, 2014
| archive-url       = https://web.archive.org/web/20140912041240/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/AR2006060702167.html
| url-status       = live
}}</ref>

===Religion===
Stevenson belonged to the [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] faith, and was a longtime member of Bloomington's Unitarian church.<ref>(Baker, p. 357)</ref> However, he also occasionally attended Presbyterian services in Libertyville, where a Unitarian church was not present, and as governor he became close friends with the Rev. Richard Graebel, the pastor of Springfield's First Presbyterian church.<ref name="Baker, p. 358">(Baker, p. 358)</ref> Graebel "acknowledged that Stevenson's Unitarian rearing had imbued him with the means of translating religious and ethical values into civic issues".<ref name="Baker, p. 358"/> According to one historian, "religion never disappeared entirely from his public messages – it was indeed part of his appeal".<ref name="Baker, p. 358"/>