Michael Stevens

Michael Stevens was born in Miami, Florida on July 10, 1947, and died in Alameda, California on November 15, 2023. He lived an extraordinary life, by turns as a grocery bagger, health food restaurant owner, college drop-out, college professor, chicken feed and meat rendering mogul, carpool driver, professional baseball scorer, avid golfer and fisherman, opera singer, Washington Irving expert, and master birder. Above all, he will be remembered as a generous husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, cousin, mentor, and friend who took exceptional care of the many, many people who loved him.

Michael's parents, Bernard "Bernie" Stevens and Sureeva "Sue" Felt Stevens, were civic leaders active in Miami's Jewish community. His childhood included the role of the eldest of a tight-knit group of siblings and cousins, lots of fishing (Michael often said they owed an apology to future generations for catching too many marlin before they knew better), and playing the neighborhood games of a traditional post-war suburban upbringing. Michael's father ran a local chain of grocery stores, Stevens Market, where Michael bagged groceries for $1 an hour. He described his early school years as undistinguished and credited his high school Honors English teacher for unlocking his lifelong love of learning. In that English class, he also built a group of friends who have remained close, reconnecting and meeting weekly by video since the pandemic.

At 18, Michael enrolled at the University of Wisconsin. The winters were quite a shock to him- the warmest thing he owned when he arrived in Madison was a light sweater-but he made a happy life in Wisconsin for the next 18 years. In college, Michael studied archeology, spending summers on digs in Idaho and the Yukon. In a class on Arctic anthropology his senior year, he met a graduate student named Debbie (Brown) who was interested in the Arctic and had spent time there. She took the class hoping to meet a man with shared interests. She and Michael later married, although they never made it back to the Arctic.

Michael didn't quite finish college that time around; in his words, he got a bit distracted senior year by smoking pot and playing bridge. He and Debbie were hippies and enjoyed Madison in the 1960s, which featured communes, protests, underground newspapers, and very long hair. In the early 1970s, Michael and Debbie moved to Milwaukee, where Michael worked at The Fertile Dirt, a food co-op and bakery. In 1973, Michael started Beans and Barley, a natural food store and restaurant that today is still a thriving Milwaukee icon. Debbie started the Children's Co-op daycare with friends who embraced the 1970s ethos of raising children communally. Michael and Debbie's children, Amanda and Corey, spent their early childhoods in this tight-knit community that has remained in contact over the last five decades.

In the early 1980s, Michael answered the call to join his family's meat rendering and animal feed business in Atlanta. This was the start of his "chicken feed" era. Michael learned all aspects of this rather smelly business, including doing a stint as a dispatcher, which featured late-night calls from truck drivers with one problem or another. Michael, a natural mimic, developed a convincing southern accent that he diplomatically deployed as needed during his years working in Georgia. Over the years, the business focused on the niche of recycling bakery waste, picking up the scraps from factories like Keeblers and Chips Ahoy and grinding them into a delicious (?) high-fat additive for chicken feed. Over the next decade, the family expanded the chicken feed empire and Michael spent a lot of time on the road, enjoying the sights from East Texas to Southern Indiana.

Michael's service to the Atlanta community over the 25 years he lived there included projects that reflected his wide-ranging skills, interests, and hobbies. This included many parent volunteer roles at the Paideia School from art history teacher to snack bar manager. His deep dedication to sports fandom led to a side job in baseball scorekeeping for the abysmal Atlanta Braves of the 1980s. This paid off when his season tickets, which had gotten better and better over the years as less dedicated fans dropped off, ended up giving him literal front-row seats to the world champion Braves of the 1990s. Michael also enjoyed activities ranging from playing volleyball, assistant coaching soccer, singing tenor, Clayton County Rotary Club, the Virginia Highland coffee crew, a whole golfing era, and reconnecting with his Jewish faith at a neighborhood havurah.

In 1996, the family sold their business, and Michael embarked on the next phase of his life. Now in his 50s, Michael returned to Madison briefly to finish his Bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin. College life suited him much more than it had when he was in his 20s and after completing his undergraduate degree, Michael went on to Georgia State University where he earned a Master's degree in Art History and a PhD in History. As a student in the waning moments of the heyday of liberal arts academia, his research focused on Washington Irving's time in Spain in the 1820s and an anglophone perspective of the history of Spain and the Moors.

The late 90s also saw the birth of Michael's first grandchild and his relationship with her and all of his grandchildren was one of the great joys of his life. Michael and Debbie spent wondrous times with little Rosemary in Humboldt County among redwoods and fairy woods. These travels helped motivate them to move to California, settling in Alameda in 2007. With this move Michael was able to embrace his true calling- teaching. As an adjunct professor at Sonoma State, California College of the Arts (CCA), and Las Positas College, he taught world and art history. Ever humble, Michael claimed his success as a teacher was due to his skill of "knowing five minutes worth of information on any subject you can think of." In reality, Michael's expertise had remarkable depth and breadth, and he was always seeking to expand it, including, near the end of his career, developing CCA's curriculum on Chinese art and history. He was beloved by his students, whom he inspired with his infectious curiosity about the ways art and history shape our world and lives.

Michael centered his life around his family and community. He was content at the center of large and small gatherings of his and Debbie's extensive family, naturally playing the caretaker role. He was loved for his personal generosity and sense of service both to his family and to the many people whom Michael had a knack for finding at the exact moment they most needed his kind words, a meal, advice, financial support, a friend, a mentor, a surrogate father, someone to sing with, or a room in his and Debbie's home. Michael's life exemplified Washington Irving's words in the 19th Century: "There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others however humble."

In California, his community included the Island City Opera Company, where he performed after becoming a late-in-life opera singer, the Alameda Peet's morning crew, the race track guys, Temple Beth Abraham, especially the "minyan-aires" with whom Michael attended early morning services, the Golden Gate Barbershop Chorus, and the Alameda Community Chorus. During the pandemic, Michael rekindled his lifelong interest in birding, and, along with a small pack of intrepid birding friends, he feverishly tracked birds around the state and country, racking up eBird milestones. In 2020 and 2021, he was one of the top birders in Alameda County, and Governor Newsom wrote to congratulate Michael after he added his 300th bird species to his list of California sightings, which was, fittingly, the remarkable California Condor.

Michael is survived by his wife of 51 years Debbie Brown, children Amanda Brown-Stevens (Adam Van de Water) of Oakland, CA, Corey Stevens (Tatiana) of Sarasota FL, grandchildren Eliza and Polly Van de Water, and Rosemary, Samantha, and Charlie Stevens, brother Jim Stevens (Bettina) of Ocala FL, sisters-in-law Kate Gillis of Providence RI and Suzanne Kulik of Worthington MA, brother-in-law Steve Zorowitz of New York, and many beloved nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends. He was predeceased by his parents Bernie Stevens and Sue Felt Stevens and his sister Sara Stevens Zorowitz. Donations in his memory may be made to the Golden Gate Bird Alliance (https://goldengateaudubon.org/) or to any local opera, arts, or theater organization.