Julia Ruth Stevens
adopted daughter of Babe Ruth (1916-2019)
Julia Ruth Stevens (born Julia Marshall Hodgson; July 7, 1916 – March 9, 2019) was the adopted daughter of American baseball player Babe Ruth and the biological daughter of his second wife Claire Merritt Ruth.
Stevens was born Julia Hodgson to Claire (née Merritt) and Frank Hodgson in Athens, Georgia. Her father, who died in 1921, was estranged from her mother soon after Julia was born. The mother and daughter moved to New York City where Claire worked as a model.
Her mother met Babe Ruth in 1923, and they married in 1929. Ruth subsequently adopted Julia. Through the marriage, she also gained a sister, Dorothy.
Julia was married three times. Her first husband was Richard Flanders who died in 1949. Her second marriage to Grant Meloon ended in divorce but produced a son.
“Julia Ruth Stevens” enters the record as adopted daughter of Babe Ruth (1916-2019). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Julia, Ruth and Stevens can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q92536840. VIAF identifies the subject as 28840334. The Library of Congress control number is n98006113. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 2019, 1921 and 1923.
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This entry incorporates text from “Julia Ruth Stevens” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.