One of eight children of Stephen Lee, Senior, and the former Rebecca Grantham, Lee was born two years before the start of the American Civil War in Perry County in southeastern Mississippi. He was a lineal descendant of Light Horse Harry Lee of Virginia, the father of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
He was educated in the public schools of Grant Parish. After reaching adulthood, he taught school for a number of years.
His term corresponded with the administration of Governor Newton C. Blanchard. The Lees left Perry County when he was twelve years of age. Lee was the president and general manager of the Lee Lumber Company, which operated a large sawmill at Tioga in northwestern Rapides Parish.
The company closed c.
1917 after the nearby timber was exhausted. He was the Grant Parish assessor during the 1890s, having been appointed to the since elected position by then Governor Murphy J. Foster, Senior
After his legislative term ended, he relocated to Alexandria. He had a large political following and worked in 1928 for the successful election of Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Huey Pierce Long, Junior., as the Louisiana governor.
On November 12, 1884, Lee married Martha Cornelia Nugent (1862-1933), a daughter of Matthew and Julie Ann Mackie Nugent, pioneer Grant Parish settlers.
Lee died of an illness of several months at his Alexandria home at the intersection of Fourth and Saint James streets five days after his seventieth birthday. He had two surviving grandsons, attorney James Rowland Eubank (1914-1952) and Doctor Marion Lee Jarrell (1921-1984). James Eubank served briefly in the Louisiana House in 1952, during which time he was a floor leader for Governor Robert F. Kennon.
Representative Eubank died of a heart attack in Alexandria at the age of thirty-seven.
Lee is interred with other family members at Greenwood Memorial Park in Pineville. Both Methodist and Southern Baptist pastors officiated at his funeral, with Masonic lodge graveside rites following.
