Wilson Stapleton was born in Maine, grew up in Nova Scotia, and served in both the Royal Canadian Army and the U.S. Army during World War I. In 1929 he moved to Cleveland, where he earned a law degree from the Cleveland Law School and an M.A. from Western Reserve University. He joined the law school faculty shortly after his graduation. Appointed dean of the newly merged Cleveland-Marshall Law School in 1946, he proved an exceptional administrator: increasing the school’s financial resources, enlarging its faculty, and expanding its library. He was instrumental in obtaining vital AALS accreditation. While simultaneously serving as teacher and dean, he was elected to three separate terms as Mayor of Shaker Heights. But it is not for his skills as administrator and politician that he is best remembered: those who studied law during the Stapleton years remember him as a big-hearted man, always ready to dispatch kindnesses and encouragement and, quite often, to bend the rules. After his retirement in 1967, he moved to Florida, passed the Florida bar, opened a law office, and stayed close to his former students until his death.