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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 hiniself 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

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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.