The son of former Illinois senator and famous political family Adela Stevenson III died on Monday at the age of 90.
Stevenson represented the state from 1970 to 1981. His great-grandfather served as Vice President of the United States for the second term in Grover Cleveland. His father was elected as the 31st governor of Illinois and ran as a Democratic candidate The president twice.
The former senator’s wife, Nancy Stevenson, aged 67, confirmed that his death at home in Chicago was due to complications related to Lewy body disease-a common form of dementia. His son Adela Stevenson IV also confirmed the news.
“He just disappeared,” he said.
After the death of U.S. Senator Everett Dirkson, Stevenson defeated Ralph Taylor Smith in a special election to fill the unexpired term and began his career. SenateIn 1974, Stevenson was re-elected. Two years later, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley encouraged the senator to run for president, but he refused to run. After the expiration of the six-year term, Stevenson did not seek re-election.
Instead, Stevenson chose to run for governor of Illinois with Republican James R. Thompson. Thompson, who has served four consecutive terms, is the longest-serving governor of the state, and Stevenson hopes to defeat him.
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The 1982 vote was the closest governor election in the state’s history, but Thompson defeated Stevenson by 5,074 out of 3.6 million votes. The result was challenged in court.
Stevenson ran for the election again in 1986, but due to ideological differences, he refused to win the same votes as the gentlemen nominated by the party’s deputy governor and secretary of state. Instead, he organized the Illinois Unity Party as an alternative and lost in the election.
After leaving public office, Stevenson continued to engage in legal work and began to focus on business and cultural relations with East Asia. He previously graduated from Harvard University and Harvard Law School, and served in the Korean Marine Corps in the early 1950s.
Before his health declined, Stevenson actively gave speeches and lectures at the Stevenson Democracy Center in Adelaide, Libertyville, Illinois, and worked on a family farm, raising cattle and growing corn.
In 2017, he told this New York Times The political dynasty of his family is likely to end because his son Adelaide IV is a businessman and former journalist. Stevenson’s grandson was born in 1994 and is described as a “computer master”, and neither of them has much interest in politics.
Stevenson’s wife and children, brothers John and Boden, and nine grandchildren survived.
