This week we will begin to tell the story of the Reardon family, who lived at 405 Willow St. from 1915 to 1967.
As we learned in prior installments in this series, the house at 405 Willow St. was built in 1871 or 1872 by Dietrich C. Smith, who lived there with his family until 1907. The next family to own and live in the house were the Bleekers, who lived there from 1911 until January of 1915.
Tazewell County State’s Attorney William John Reardon Sr. (1878-1941) purchased the house from Blanche Bleeker on 30 Jan. 1915. Regarding Reardon’s purchase of the house, in his book “Pekin History: Then and Now,” Rob Clifton wrote, “In 1915 William Reardon bought the home for his bride, who dreamed of living in the home many years prior to moving in.”
His bride was Marie Elizabeth Albertsen (1884-1967), daughter of Ubbo Janssen and Anna Elizabeth Sophia (Koch) Albertsen of Pekin. William and Marie married at the home of her parents on 17 June 1913. Marie’s father Ubbo served in the Illinois General Assembly as a senator, and was partner with John Hinners in the Hinners Organ Co. The Albertsens formerly lived at 612 Henrietta St., which was about three blocks south of the D. C. Smith mansion. Later they lived in a home at the corner of Capitol and Willow streets, about a block east of the Smith mansion. Since the Albertsens and Smiths were both prominent Pekin families from Ostfriesland, they ran in the same circles and Marie must have seen and visited the house at 405 Willow St. innumerable times before her marriage.
While marriages in those days normally took place when a couple was in their late teens or early 20s, William and Marie Reardon did not marry until he was 34 and she was 28, which was highly unusual for first marriages back then. In William’s case the delay was mostly due to his long years of study for the legal profession. Partly due to their marrying late, William and Marie had only three children, a daughter named Mary Ann and two sons named Daniel Albertsen and William John Jr.
Among the records that show the Reardons’ residence at 405 Willow St. is William J. Reardon’s World War I draft registration, which says “William John Reardon,” 40, born 28 June 1878, registered for the draft on 12 Sept. 1918. He listed his permanent home address as 405 Willow St. and gave his wife Marie’s name as that of his nearest relative.
The residence of William J. Reardon and his family at 405 Willow St. also can be traced in U.S. Census records from 1920 to 1950, as follows:
1920: William J. Reardon, 40, Attorney at Law, wife Marie E. Reardon, 35, daughter Mary A. Reardon, 5, son Daniel A. Reardon, 4 years 9 months, all born in Illinois.
1930: William J. Reardon, 51, lawyer, 34 at first marriage, wife Marie E. Reardon, 45, 28 at first marriage, Mary A. Reardon, 15, son Daniel A. Reardon, 14, son William J. Reardon, 7, all born in Illinois. Value of home: $10,000.
1940: William J. Reardon, 61, lawyer, wife Marie Reardon, 55, son William Jo. Reardon, 18, absent, all born in Illinois, all lived in same house in 1935.
1950: Marie E. Reardon, 64, widowed, son William J. Reardon, 27, attorney at law, both born in Illinois.
In addition to the terms that he served as Tazewell County State’s Attorney, Reardon was a very talented and accomplished local attorney and became a judge in Tazewell County Circuit Court. Among the most notable cases in which he was involved was the successful defense, in partnership with Pekin attorney and judge Jesse Black Jr., of the Tazewell County Sheriff’s deputies who were implicated in the 1932 torture and death of Tazewell County jail inmate Martin Virant.
Reardon and Black had previously served during the 1920s as special counsels investigating and prosecuting cases of bootlegging and kidnapping during the Prohibition Era. Next week we will tell that story in greater detail, for their prosecutions drew the ire of criminals who left their mark on the house at 405 Willow St.
For now, however, we will reproduce the text of Judge Reardon’s lengthy and detailed obituary, which provides an extended account of his life and career. The obituary was published in the Pekin Daily Times on Tuesday, 27 June 1941:
Wm. J. Reardon Taken By Heart Ailment; Ill Week; Funeral Monday
Death claimed one of the picturesque and forceful characters of Tazewell county when a form of asthma of the heart ended the life of former County Judge William John Reardon at 11:30 o’clock last night at the St. Francis hospital in Peoria. He would have been 63 years old tomorrow.
If he had suffered from heart disease, he had never let the family know it. Perhaps he knew too well how the words “heart trouble” would frighten them, for their stalwart son, Danny, had been stricken down in his teens with heart trouble and after long suffering had died of it on July 18, 1932. So Mr. Reardon merely told his family that he wasn’t hungry — didn’t feel like eating. Then a day or two later that “I don’t feel like going to the office today.” That was a week ago today.
Couldn’t Take Oxygen
Monday morning he felt so miserable that Dr. Needham arranged for him to be sent to St. Francis hospital. There air cooling was put in his room and every form of supplying oxygen was tried. But they gave him so little relief that in his semi-conscious condition, Judge Reardon would push the instruments away, brush the tent aside, or seize the mask off his face. Last evening, however, a new medicine seemed to give him relief and he lapsed into a sound sleep.
Family Not Present
“Go home now and get your rest,” the heart specialist said to Mrs. Reardon and son, William. Scarcely were they home, when the call came to hurry back. Speeding to the hospital again, they arrived after death already had come.
William John Reardon was born in Boynton township, near Delavan, June 28, 1878, one of eight sons of good Irish parents. Indeed, his father, Bryan Reardon was born in Tipperary county Ireland, and his mother had come from just over the Comeragh mountains in Waterford county. Immigrants to the new world, they had settled on the rich Boyntown township land. Of those eight sons, half are now gone: Bryan died near the old home in 1904; Edward in Oklahoma City about 1927; and Gerald died in St. Louis the day before Franklin D. Roosevelt was first inaugurated. Living are Michael of Albuquerque, N. M., Neil and C. C. of Delavan, and Clarence of Chicago.
Studies for Law
William went thru Delavan high and was graduated in 1896. A woe of that year to the ardent young democrat was seeing McKinley defeat Bryan. The young student, apt in debate and forceful on the platform, determined to be a lawyer, and went to Nebraska university where he was graduated with the class of ’02. He came back to Illinois and practiced at East St. Louis for a year, then came back to his home county seat and hung out a shingle with a name that was to become widely known in Illinois. Soon after, he was elected state’s attorney, and he celebrated his renomination for the office by wedding Marie Elizabeth Albertsen, June 17, 1913. They were wed in the old U. J. Albertsen home at Capitol and Willow before the same fireplace where a more recent state’s attorney took another attractive Albertsen bride. They made their home close by, at the corner of Willow and N. Fourth, where they lived until this day, and where friends may call to express their sympathy tonight.
Honored Often
Forceful in his enforcement of the law, rugged in prosecution of criminals, stories are told to this day of Attorney Reardon’s activities as prosecutor; and of bullets that were fired at him thru the windows and doors of his home one night.In later years, Attorney Reardon was elected president of the Pekin Association of Commerce, president of the County Bar association, and from 1924 until 1938 he served as county judge. His law offices were in the Marshall building, just across the street from the south door of the courthouse, and in recent years some of the county’s most important law cases were handled out of that office.
It was during his two terms as states attorney that the present Tazewell county courthouse was built and Mr. Reardon was given much credit for the shrewd financing plan which enabled the county to pay for the building in only a few years.
Daughter at Canal Zone
Beside the widow and son, William John Reardon Jr., there survive a daughter, Mrs. Gerald Simpson, and her child Michael. Mrs. Simpson (Mary, wife of an army officer) had sailed back to their Canal Zone home on May 1 after a visit with her parents. Two telegrams were set to her this morning. Because Mary had no intimation of her father’s illness, they first sent a message saying her father was seriously ill. Later they sent a death message. Of course Mary will be unable to come for the funeral which probably will be held Monday morning at St. Joseph’s Catholic church, with the Rev. Father Sheedy conducting a requiem mass.
Judge Reardon was a member of St. Joseph’s Catholic church, the Holy Name society, the Elks, and other organizations; but his friends knew him best as a man who loved his home and cherished his family. Among all the word darts and actual bullets fired at him in his life, none cut him so as did the death of Danny; and it is beside Danny that he will be buried next Monday noon.
