Duty’s desire for action came at 16 when as a student in Crab Orchard Academy; he tried to enter service in the Spanish American War. He was denied this wish when his father refused to sign an age waiver. He attained a pharmacy degree from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana instead.
On February 3, 1904, Delos married for the first time to Retta C. Creal, but in 1906, the couple separated and eventually divorced in 1913. They had one daughter, Helen Duly Bunker who died early in life leaving a son, Art Bunker, who later lived in North Dakota. Duty went to the Oklahoma Territory and worked briefly as a cowboy on the Waldron Ranch. He contracted typhoid fever and returned to Marion to convalesce when he began working as a clerk for Fred J. Haeberle Drug Store operating at 200 N. Market Street.
When the Haeberle family left Marion in 1908, Duty bought the drug store from them and later the building in order to found the Duty Drug Company. He later converted the one story building at the corner of N. Market and E. Union from a one story building to a two story building in which to accommodate law offices on the second floor. Many of us older residents will remember Campbell’s Rexall Drug Store being in that same location much later on.
Fred and his wife Lillian Haeberle lived at 800 N. Market St. At this time, Delos, according to street directories, was living at W. Court and the EI tracks, whatever that means. (I suspect he was boarding in a rooming house at W. College and the C &EI tracks, perhaps the Silver Moon Hotel.)
In the 1910 census, he was renting living space at 509 E. DeYoung Street and listed himself as a druggist. I have yet to locate specifics on his drug business but he ended up founding the Duty Drug Company at 200 N. Market St. where he had previously clerked for F.J. Haeberle. The building in which he is doing business bears his name as “the Duty Building” to this day and he later lived and conducted his law business in the upper floors.
While operating his pharmacy, Delos began the study of law by correspondence course through the Lincoln University Law School in Jefferson, Missouri and under the tutelage of Rufus Neely, D.T. Harwell and William Oscar Potter. Delos never attended a physical law school. He was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1915 and was a Republican nominee for state’s attorney that year, but was beaten by Ed M. Spiller by 39 votes.
Duty interrupted his law career in 1918 at the end of WWI when he enlisted at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri and served as a captain in Company M, Egyptian Volunteer Infantry.
After his father Hiram Duty’s death on July 25, 1909, his mother Paradine (Parks) Duty, now 64, moved to Marion and in the 1920 census they are found to be living in a home at 717 E. Main Street. The home is owned, free of mortgage.
In 1920, he was elected State’s Attorney for Williamson County and served until 1924 through some of the most tumultuous times the county has ever seen.
The kaleidoscopic violence that resulted in the “Bloody Williamson” tag on this county marked the tenure of Delos L. Duty as state’s attorney.
He never quit the battle for what he believed to be right despite threats on his life and actually being wounded by gunfire from speeding autos on three occasions.
He recalled while alive that he bore wounds in both arms, both legs and his neck when car borne snipers came close to consummating threats on his life.
After Duty was elected state’s attorney in 1920, he got some instant action in that he went to work the opening day of his tenure on a double murder case. He obtained the death penalties in both case. One of the men, Frank Bianca, hanged himself in the county jail cell when the jail was on S. Van Buren Street and the other, Settimi DeSantis, was hanged legally on S. Monroe St., Feb. 11, 1921, at the location of the original county jail.
Despite his efforts to avert violence, the Lester mine massacre (Herrin Massacre) occurred in 1922 and court efforts to obtain convictions in the 23 deaths were thwarted.
When that phase died down, he was embroiled in a fight against the Ku Klux Klan and it was during this period that he became a “clay pigeon” for snipers who took potshots at him almost nightly on his way home at 210 N. Market Street from the courthouse on the square.
Inroads on his health dictated a long rest in Arizona, after which he returned to Marion and a continuation of his long career as a trial attorney.
Perhaps the most vivid portrayal of his hectic service as a state’s attorney is to be found in the book “Bloody Williamson,” authored by Paul M. Angle. Published originally in 1952, many references to Duty appear in a number of chapters in the book.
In 1925, Delos married a second time to Grace M. Moroni in Marion, Illinois and had a second daughter, Lalla Grace Duty. The couple appear to have divorced in the 1930’s.
By the 1930 census, Delos is living alone at 210 N. Market St. and still lists himself as married. His occupation is a lawyer at general practice. He owns the building he is living in and values it at $6,000.
In 1936, Norman, Matt Lawrence, Delos Duty and Howard Moake acquired the old Marion State and Savings Bank building from the receivers and started converting it into a hotel (Hotel State). He later withdrew from the process.
In the 1940 census, Delos is 57 years old and divorced living at 202 ½ N. Market St. where he was at in 1935.
When Delos registered for the World War II draft, his records indicate he is living at 202 ½ N. Market St., he is 59 years old and a lawyer. His contact person is his mother, Paradine, living at 717 E. Main St. He is 6’ 3” tall, weighs 204 lbs., has blue eyes, grey hair and has a sallow complexion.
Duty retired Dec. 16, 1961, from his law practice following a traffic accident in which he sustained near fatal injuries. After the accident, he made his home with a sister Mrs. Jettie Winter at 606 Pleasant Court in Marion for four years previous to his death.
Delos died at Marion Memorial Hospital on December 21, 1965 at age 83, where he had been a patient for several weeks. Funeral services were held at Wilson Funeral Home conducted by Rev. Everett Lynch. The body was cremated and his ashes were placed in a niche in a stone at Pleasant Grove Cemetery, Crab Orchard, Illinois with the rest of his family. An inscription on his monument reads, “As a scientist I have always been in favor of cremation. In the far distant future I believe and hope it will become a universal law. My most ardent wish has long been that my ashes rest above the bones of my ancestors.”
He held membership in the Marion Elks Lodge and the Odd Fellows Lodge in addition to the Williamson County Bar Association.
In addition to his sister, Mrs. Jettie Winters, survivors include a daughter, Miss Lalla Duty of St. Louis; another sister, Mrs. Snow Fuller of Marion; a grandson, A.B. Bunker of Fargo, N. Dakota; four nieces, Mrs. Rose Pulley, Mrs. Ruth Hannegan, Mrs. Winona Pulley and Mrs. Evelyn Doughty, and five nephews, Attorney Charles D. Winters, Rudolph Fuller, Hiram Duty, George Moueton and Leon Jones, another daughter Mrs. Helen Duty Bunker preceded him in death.
Sam’s Notes: It is apparent from his obituary that Delos had two daughters, Lala Grace Duty and Helen Duty Bunker, but his marriages appear to have been so brief that none of the federal censuses ever caught him at a moment when he was cohabitating with family. I suspect that Delos was so devoted to his sense of duty that the cost in his life amounted to more than a few gunshot wounds.
(Data from Marion Daily Republican article dated December 1965, Obituary, Federal Census Records, Marion City Directories; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 04/03/2013, Revised on 10/09/2017)