Finding Henry: The Right One This Time

Back in August I shared the story of my trip to Los Angeles in 1965 to attend the national convention of high school Latin Clubs, and how the winner of the Latin oratory contest made a big impression on me -- so big that I set out to find him or what happened to him in the intervening sixty years.  You can read that story here.

Not long after that, with the help of a good friend, I found a person who seemed to fit the description, so I posted another story about finding that speaker, Henry Stevenson.  You can read that story here.

But as good as the evidence seemed to be, something just didn't feel right about the identification.  The owner of a commercial sewing machine store who died in a small town in Missouri in 2009 didn't seem consistent with my (admittedly youthful and idealistic) expectations for the life of a prize-winning orator at a national Latin Club convention.

Meanwhile, another long-time friend -- a librarian in Boston -- suggested that I check to see if the high school Henry Stevenson attended had a current Facebook page.  Many high schools do, primarily to keep in touch for reunion purposes.

From the original search, I knew what high school he attended, and there was, indeed a Facebook page for its alumni, so I posted an ISO (in search of) message on the page.  The first person to respond said they thought he was a judge in New York, and was still alive, but didn't have any contact information.

The second person to respond also said Stevenson had been a judge and was still listed as a lawyer in New York City, and gave me his full name:  Henry Everett Stevenson.  He also told me that Stevenson went to Cornell Law School.  

With that additional information, I re-started my internet search.  It didn't take long to find multiple listings for a New York lawyer named Henry Stevenson who attended Cornell Law.  Bingo!

A couple of the online listings provided a street address and a phone number, so I took the most direct approach and called the number.  A male voice answered; I identified myself and said I was looking for a Henry Stevenson from Baytown, Texas.  He said, "You found him."

I explained why I had tracked him down: (a) to find out what had become of him since 1965; and (b) to tell him how affected I was by his oration.

He said that after high school he went to Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania for two years, then realized that there were better places to get an education.  So he transferred to Yale (a better place indeed!), and afterwards went on to law school at Cornell.  He was admitted to the New York bar in 1975 and became an administrative law judge for the State of New York, hearing cases before various state agencies.  He retired as a senior judge in 2021.

When I told him how impressed I was by his oration, he explained that he had not written it himself, but that it was the story of Daedalus and Icarus from Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book 8, ll. 183-235).  He said he had been on the debate team in high school, which competed in the Houston area, and he learned a lot about public speaking from watching the better teams, so he incorporated much of what he learned in terms of speaking dynamics and gestures into his oration performance.  Clearly, it worked.  Not only did he win first place at the 1965 convention; he took the same speech to the Latin Club convention the following year (1966) and won first prize there too!

Then he remarked, "To this day, I can still recite that speech."  I hesitated for just a moment -- you know what I was thinking -- and then said, "Would you do some of it for me now?"  He said "Sure," and launched into it.

He did about two minutes of the speech.  I couldn't see any gestures or body language on the phone, but his pacing, rhythms, and dynamics were all there, just like they were sixty years ago.  It gave me chills and tears.

We chatted a bit more -- family and career stuff -- and then I asked him if he would send me a picture because I wanted to do a follow-up blog post now that I had found him.  He agreed. 

So here he is, at long last, the right Henry Everett Stevenson.  Macte virtute sic itur ad astra!