Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

DR. WILLIAM L. STEPHENS

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

            The highest professional attainments of Dr. William L. Stephens have 
given him a place of prominence among the leading citizens of Sutter County.  He 
was born in Fayette County,, Ill., March 4, 1873, a son of P. M. and Rhoda E. 
(DeVore) Stephens, natives of Illinois.  His father, who was a farmer, lived and 
died on the same ranch where he was born.  He passed away when he was 
forty-seven years old; Mrs. Stephens is living at Illinois at the age of 
seventy-seven.  They were blessed with eight children, four boys and four girls, 
and William L. is the fourth in order of birth; all of the children are living 
at the present time.
            William L. Stephens attended the public school and received a 
teacher�s certificate.  When he was nineteen years old, he was obliged to take 
up the work on the home ranch, on account of his father�s death.  After running 
the ranch for three years, he became a ranch hand and worked for wages in order 
to get money to attend medical school.  In 1897 he entered the Eclectic College, 
at Cincinnati, Ohio, from which he was graduated in 1901.  In May of the same 
year he came to Pittsburg, Contra Costa County, and was there for two summers; 
and later he practiced at Gridley, Butte County, for one summer.  He then went 
to Columbia, Tuolumne County, and practiced there from the fall of 1902 to 1905. 
 In 1905 he came to Meridian, where he has remained ever since, and where, in 
1921, he built a first-class drug store.  
            The marriage of Dr. Stephens occurred on July 30, 1903, at Stockton, 
and united him with Miss Laura Siebert, a native of Columbia, Cal., and a 
daughter of William and Kate Siebert.  Mr. and Mrs. Stephens were the parents of 
four children: Gertrude, William Siebert, Lettie and Dudley.  In 1919, Mrs. 
Stephens was laid away to rest at Meridian.  For five years, Dr. Stephens has 
served as county health officer of Sutter County.  He is now a trustee of the 
Meridian Grammar School.  Fraternally, he belongs to the Odd Fellows Lodge at 
Meridian, of which he has been treasurer for nine years and has been Noble 
Grand, and is a member of the Rebekahs at Meridian, the Masons at Yuba City, the 
Sciots at Marysville, and the Modern Woodmen and Fraternal Brotherhood at 
Meridian.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p. 700