Arkansas-born Benjamin Anderson (Ben) Stephens (1850-1932) and Louisiana native Martha Eolean Eddleman (1866-1933) married in Cameron Parish, Louisiana in 1884. The couple had two daughters when they moved to Orange in the early 1890s and would go on to have three more children. In June 1907, Ben and Martha bought a house on Pine Street, built in 1889 for Wolf Bluestein, from J.A. Holland for $1,500. This remained home to the family for the next 75 years. Many of the Stephens family had careers in law enforcement and public service. Ben was listed as Deputy City Marshal by 1904 and was elected City Marshal in April 1907 and reelected in 1909 and 1911. Later he served as city recorder and Justice of the Peace. Ben and Martha’s youngest child, Edward Moore (“Buck”) Stephens, married Sadie Woods in 1926, and the couple moved into the Stephens house after Sadie’s father, Deputy Sheriff W.C. Woods, had suddenly died two weeks before their wedding. Buck and Sadie continued to live in the family home after Ben and Martha died. They took in a boarder during Orange’s World War II shipbuilding boom. Buck was a machine operator in the American Bridge Shipyard. Sadie began her career as secretary to County Judge DeWitt Bennett, then spent many years in the county clerk’s office, eventually being appointed County Clerk herself in 1950, being elected in 1951 and continuing in office until retiring in 1969. She served as president of the Texas County and District Clerks Association. Ben and Martha Stephens and Buck and Sadie Stephens are buried at Evergreen Cemetery. (2023)