Dr. Sarah Jane Stage attended Davenport public schools and earned a BA in History Summa Cum Laude from the University of Iowa, an MA in History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Ph.D. from Yale University.

She taught American Studies and Women's Studies at Yale, Williams College, the University of California, Riverside, and Arizona State University-West

She was married in 1984, to Barry W. Armour Kenyon in New York City. They had one child, Twain Robert Allen Kenyon of Carefree, AZ