In 1978, his first wife, Ann, died along with four others when the executive jet carrying them home crashed at the Anchorage airport. Stevens was one of two survivors.
At that point, the Stevens' five children were adults. Two years later, he remarried, and soon had a daughter, Lily, who recently graduated from college.
In the 1980s, Stevens and his new wife, the former Catherine Bittner, suffered a serious financial reversal.
Along with her younger brother, William Bittner, and other partners, Stevens invested in the construction of a $2-million crab boat, records show. Before it was finished, costs soared and the crab market crashed, plunging Stevens into debt.
The unexpected inheritance of a 54-foot yacht helped Stevens to regain his financial footing. Records show the boat was a bequest from the late Charles Willis "Bill" Snedden, publisher of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, a longtime friend of Stevens'. Stevens sold the boat for about $400,000, according to a source involved in the transaction who did not want to be named.
Stevens' financial problems underscored the disparity between his personal situation and that of his wealthy Senate colleagues.
In a news interview in the late 1980s, he lashed out at Alaska voters for failing to appreciate the personal and financial sacrifices he had made for them.
A $50,000 Investment
In 1997, Stevens began making up for lost time.
"Money was never what Ted Stevens was about," one close associate said of Stevens' sudden focus on accumulating wealth. The associate attributed it to Stevens' age -- he turned 80 last month -- and to concern about his family.
Whatever the reasons for the change, sometime in 1997 -- acting at the senator's request -- brother-in-law Bittner contacted a friend, Anchorage real estate developer Jonathan B. Rubini, about investment opportunities for the senator, Rubini said.
At the time, Stevens was making about $130,000 a year as a senator, and his wife reported annual earnings of about $100,000.
Rubini said he would be honored to help, the developer recalled recently during extensive interviews in his Anchorage office.
A lawyer and a Democrat known for representing liberal clients, Rubini had a gift for engineering complex deals.
Rubini and his partner, Leonard B. Hyde, made it a practice to form a separate syndicate of investors for each project. Bittner had often been among those participants. Rubini arranged for Stevens to put up $50,000, giving him a 7.7% interest in a new syndicate called JLS Properties.
