The Marmon Drug store was one of the longest established drug stores in Bloomington. Begun in the 1840s by J.E. Parks and A.H. Lucas, the business was taken over by Paist and Elder in 1853, when William W. Marmon was a young clerk in the store. William was then boarding with the Paist family and eventually married Mary Cheney, the daughter of Maria Dawson Cheney Paist. Mary spent almost her entire life at 307 E. Washington, which was first the Paist family home and later the home of the Marmons.
One product sold at the Marmon Drug Store was Boro Lithia Mineral Water from Waukesha, Wisconsin. This was a natural spring water with the addition of lithia salts -- or lithium bicarbonate, which is now used in the treatment of bipolar disorders. It was sold by druggists as well as grocers. There must have some really mellow people in the late 1800s if they drank much of this water. Dr. Wood's Pine Cough Syrup would cure the cough, "down to the very verge of consumption." Caldwell's Syrup Pepsin could cure any complaint of the intestinal tract, for a mere 50 cents a bottle. The Pantagraph was enriched by the dozens of advertisements placed by Marmon's and the other druggists shilling these amazing remedies.
The drug store was located at 115 N. Main all through its existence. In 1903, the same year that the business celebrated its fifty years of existence under the same family, William L. Marmon, the sole owner and son of William W. Marmon and Mary Cheney, sold the business to a Tennessee firm. He had taken on a plantation called Oakley in the South in partial payment for the drug store and was going to take a rest from the drug business. A trade publication indicated that the selling price of the business was said to be about $75,000. The only clue as to the location of the plantation was that it was on the line of the Illinois Central Railroad. It was said that William found the strain of running a wholesale and retail drug business too much. William continued to live in Bloomington with his mother, but in 1908 she died. Almost immediately, William put the family home up for sale and sold his mother's Steinway in the classifieds. A small notice indicated that William embarked on a world tour that year.
The photo here appears to be one from William's school days. There are no records indicating he was ever in any military group.
In 1910 William was a boarder in a house on Rush Street in Chicago. His fellow boarders were a commercial traveller, a trimmer, a printer and two bookkeepers. William was listed as a farmer. Since he was living in a boarding house in Chicago, he was obviously an absentee farmer landlord. Obviously, he was not leading the lifestyle he had enjoyed in Bloomington where he had organized parties and entertained at the country club. The only notices of William in the Pantagraph were of visits to cousins and a claim for a debt which was being prosecuted in the McLean County court.
In May, 1933 William Marmon wrote a letter to his cousin, Mrs. John Wight of 407 W. Washington Street, telling her about his despair over his failure to find work for ten years. He let her know that he was committing suicide and said good bye. John Wight and Everett Oglevee immediately took a train to Chicago and went to the Fort Dearborn Hotel where William was living. They found him unconscious and took him to the hospital, where he was revived. After a short recovery, William was returned to the Fort Dearborn and his cousin returned to Bloomington. Two days later William took sleeping powders again and succeeded in ending his life at the age of 68 years.
William's pioneer forebears would have been very disappointed in William's failure to continue their life in Bloomington, where they had broken the sod and prepared a good living for him here. Every advantage had been given to William, but he turned his back on his inheritance and tried to make a different way of life. We can only wonder what motivated him and whether he was one of those square pegs forced into a round hole.