Joan M. Stevens was one of five daughers of Ernest James Stevens, an independent MLA for the Warrego and Logan from 1878-1893, and MLC to 1920 as well as Managing Director of the Brisbane Courier. Her mother was Mrs A. C. Stevens nee Jackson from a pioneering Victorian pastoral family. Stevens was the sister of Maymie Ada Hamlyn-Harris, also a writer and convenor of the Lyceum Club literary circle, and of J. M. (Jane Marianne) Stevens.
She married John Frederick Stevens on 28 January 1920, in St John's Cathedral, Brisbane.
