ADELBERT LE ROY SPILLER, familiarly known as Roy Spiller, one of the
prominent and Influential citizens and leading lawyers of Carbondale, has
recently won special regard and high approval in the city by his able and
successful advocacy of the commission form of government, which is now in
force in the municipality, but he is entitled to and enjoys general public
approval and esteem for many other reasons. He is a native of Jackson
county, and has passed his life to this time (1911) almost wholly among its
people. They are therefore familiar with his high character and upright
living, his ability as a lawyer, his worth as a man and his usefulness as a
citizen. They also know and appreciate all he has done for their welfare.
Mr. Spiller was born on his father's farm in this county, on February 2,
1873. He is a son of William G. and Elma (Bartholomew) Spiller, who are well
known throughout the county and enjoy in a marked degree the regard and good
will of its inhabitants. Their son Roy grew to manhood on the farm and
performed his part of its useful but exacting labor, meanwhile attending the
public school near his home to obtain his elementary scholastic education.
This he-continued at the Southern Illinois Normal University, from which he
was graduated in 1896, and completed at Dixon College, in the city of the
same name in this state.
After leaving college he studied law and was
admitted to the bar in May, 1900. He at once located in Carbondale and began
the practice of his profession, devoting himself to it generally in all its
developments, but making something of a specialty of chancery and
testamentary law. During the last six years he has been mastery in chancery
for Jackson county, and has made an excellent record as such by the extent
and comprehensiveness of his knowledge and his absolute fairness and
excellent judgment in applying it to the cases before him. He has also
rendered the city excellent service as its official attorney.
Mr.
Spiller has always manifested a warm and practical interest in the city and
county of his home and here done everything in his power to promote their
welfare. He is a great believer in purity in government, municipal, state
and national, and his earnest desire to establish it in Carbondale as far as
possible made him a strong and determined advocate of the commission form of
municipal rule when it was an issue before the people, and energetic in all
the preliminary work of rousing public sentiment in its behalf in the
process of making it an issue.
He has also been useful in promoting
the 'progress and improvement of the city and county in many other ways. No
undertaking for the development or betterment of the community in any way
has ever gone without his effective practical support since he reached man's
Estate, and his aid has always been cheerfully given, intelligently guided
and fruitful in good results, both in its own force and in the activity
awakened in others by his influence and example.
On December 26,
1906, he was united in marriage with Miss Nettie Lenore, the daughter of
Samuel and Mary Heiter, prosperous Stephenson county farmers living near
Freeport, this state. Two children have been born to the union, Elma Lenore
and Adelbert Le Roy. The father is prominent and enterprising in the
fraternal life of the region as a member of the Order of Odd Fellows, the
Order of Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America. In politics
he is a Republican, but has never been an active partisan-always a good and
useful citizen.
Extracted from 1912 A History of Southern Illinois, volume 2, pages 592-393.