When Joe Biden tragically lost his first wife Neilia and infant daughter Naomi in a car
accident in 1972, the newly-elected Delaware senator was left devastated and grieving.
He went through some dark years, but he eventually got a second chance at love when he married
his second wife Jill in 1977.
It was the second marriage for both Joe and Jill, although unlike Joe, Jill's first marriage
ended in divorce. The Bidens' meet-cute love story began in 1975 when he saw a picture
of her in an airport ad for Wilmington, Delaware-area parks. He thought she looked like his kind
of girl, and luckily for him, his brother Frank was acquainted with Jill and obligingly
passed along her phone number. 45 years later, they're still together. But what about Jill's
first husband, Bill Stevenson? It turns out that he has quite an interesting past.
Stevenson is a serial entrepreneur and a published author. In his younger days, he attended Woodstock,
and the time he spent at that famous music festival in 1969 launched him on the path
to becoming the original owner of the Stone Balloon club in Newark, Delaware. Some of
the biggest names in music played there during its 30-plus year history, including Ray Charles,
Metallica, and Hootie and the Blowfish.
"I never put a band in Stone Balloon that I hadn't seen at least three or four times
regardless of how far I had to travel."
During Stevenson's college days, he played football for the University of Delaware, and
after his time as a club owner, he founded a horticultural company and invented a plant
support system that he sold to Scotts Miracle-Gro. He's also a gold medal-winning shot putter
in the National Senior Games, and after he suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 2018,
he spearheaded a nationwide campaign to equip patrol cars with defibrillators.
Stevenson describes himself as a "liberal Republican," but he's noted that he actually
voted for Barack Obama in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. His name carries a great deal
of weight in the state of Delaware. In fact, in 2012, he was given the honor of being named
one of "The 50 Most Influential Delawareans of the Past 50 Years" by Delaware Today.
It turns out that when Joe Biden first ran for the Senate in 1972, Stevenson was also
dipping his toe into the political waters. He threw his support behind the incumbent
Republican in the race, Caleb Boggs. But it was far from a match made in heaven. As Stevenson
told the Daily Mail in 2020,
"I had a disagreement with Boggs over corruption in Delaware and he told me: 'Get out of my
office. Go work for that joke Biden.'"
And that is how Stevenson then became involved with Biden's campaign. He told the Daily Mail,
"Jill and I sat in the Bidens' kitchen. We worked on his campaign. I gave $10,900 to
his first campaign — in cash."
As an author, Stevenson wrote a book called The Stone Balloon, the Early Years that was
published in 2005. It's currently out of print, but he now has a second book in the works,
though he's yet to give it a title. It will cover his own life and it will also include
the real story of how Joe and Jill first got together. It sounds like it will be a tell-all
tome about his famous ex, focusing on his suspicions that she may have been involved
with Joe while still married to him, a claim that both Bidens refute.
Despite this, Stevenson is quick to emphasize that he holds no grudges. He told the Daily
Mail,
"I genuinely don't want to harm Jill's chances of becoming First Lady. She would make an
excellent First Lady — but this is my story. It's not a bitter book — I'm not bitter
because, if it wasn't for my divorce, I would never have met my wife Linda and she's the
greatest thing in my life."
Whether the "he said" or the "she said" version of this story prevails, one thing's for sure:
Bill Stevenson will continue to be one of Delaware's most colorful characters.
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