Description

Judge Jo Ann C. Stevenson was born in Seattle, Washington on October 2nd, 1942 to Anne R. Bonomolo and John White. She was raised in Hamilton, New Jersey, and graduated from the Douglas Women's College of Rutgers University in 1964, becoming the first female college graduate from her mother's family in New York and New Jersey. She graduated with a law degree from the Detroit College of Law in 1979 and began her career clerking in the Michigan Court of Appeals and for the late Judge Cornelia Kennedy, first in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, and then in the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. She also worked as a bankruptcy attorney in Detroit for the former Hertzberg, Jacob & Weingarten law firm before becoming the first female judicial appointee of the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan in 1987. There she served as a federal bankruptcy judge until she retired in 2007. 

Stevenson was a member of the Women's City Club, the University Club, and the Union League Club of Chicago. She was also an avid traveler and reader with a passion for art, music, language, and dance. She passed away on September 9th, 2022 from cancer.