Obituary of Stanley Stevens, 88
Stanley D. Stevens
Stevens was a 1951 graduate of Paso Robles High School
– Retired UCSC Map Librarian Stanley D. Stevens died October 25 at age 88. Stan was born in San Francisco and later moved to Oakland. In 1940 he moved with his family to Paso Robles, where his father took a job working for the Post Office at Camp Roberts. He was a 1951 graduate of Paso Robles High School and regularly attended class reunions.
After graduating high school, he attended San Jose State where he studied political science with an emphasis on international relations. He worked briefly at the United Nations before returning to San Jose where he worked in the San Jose State library and where, in 1960, he met his future wife, Carli Lewis. Stan and Carli settled in Santa Cruz shortly after they married. He applied for a job in the library at the new UCSC campus and started working there in 1965 before the first students arrived.
For nearly 30 years he served as map librarian at the McHenry Library, building the collection from scratch into an invaluable resource for students, faculty, and the public. During this time he was very active with the Western Association of Map Libraries. Stan and Carli adopted three children, Alex, Nik, and Brooke, whom they raised in Santa Cruz. Their son Alex died in 2012.
Stan was actively involved in many Santa Cruz community groups including the ACLU, the Genealogical Society, and the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. He was a member and supporter of several other historical museums and societies. In 1966 he helped found the Catalyst in the old St. George Hotel. Stan, ever modest, considered himself an “amateur” historian, but his accomplishments in the study of Santa Cruz County History were numerous and scholarly. While a map librarian, he acquired for the University collection many records from the F. A. Hihn company. Stan eventually became an authority on the life and business dealings of Hihn, a 19th-century Santa Cruz capitalist who greatly influenced the county’s early history.
After retirement in 1993, he devoted even more time to local history studies. The majority of his projects focused on compiling, transcribing, and indexing material that would be useful to future historical researchers. He was the author of “Every Structure Tells A Story,” “Names on the Map,” “Pioneers of Santa Cruz County,” and numerous articles. He inspired Donald Clark to write his “Santa Cruz County Place Names” book and helped get it published. He founded the group Researchers Anonymous in 1993 as a way for local historians to share discoveries and help each other. He founded the “Santa Cruz County History Journal” in 1994, which has now published 9 volumes plus an online edition.
He was named Historian of the Year in 2000 by the History Forum at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History and was listed in Who’s Who in America. In 2018 the Capitola Historical Museum interviewed Stan for the Capitola Memories Project, which is on YouTube. Stan’s thoughtfulness and generosity in helping others won him hundreds of friends and admirers. He will be deeply missed, but his contributions to local history will be put to use far into the future.
Stan’s wife, Carli, passed away in 2021 after 61 years of marriage. Stan is survived by his son Nikolas Stevens and his wife KD and their daughter Danika, and by his daughter Brooke Stevens and her son Jack Rich. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in Stan’s honor to one of the Santa Cruz County historical museums or societies.
Published by Santa Cruz Sentinel from Nov. 8 to Nov. 10, 2022.
From Legacy.com.
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