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William Merrill faced a stark reality in 1939 when he was 9 years old: His father had just died, and he had to go find work to help take care of his mom and sister.
Merrill did whatever he could for work in his hometown, Glencoe, Minn., a small city west of Minneapolis. He worked at a hardware store, picked cherries and even worked on the town's railroad.
That work ethic soon translated to other roles. He was a multisport star high school athlete, who later played quarterback at the University of Minnesota. He graduated law school, joined the U.S Air Force and rose to the rank of captain and was a Judge Advocate General. And when Merrill moved to Sarasota, in 1956, he co-founded a law firm, Icard Merrill, that's now one of the largest firm's in the Sarasota-Bradenton region.
“People just gravitated to him,” says Merrill's son Bill Merrill, now an attorney at the same firm. “He was such a hard worker. He would never give up and persevered through the ups and downs of a case.”
William Merrill died Oct. 13 at his home in Sarasota. He was 84 years old.
Merrill's legal career was varied, but many of his cases involved development and real estate. Clients, up until his retirement in 1987, included the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort on Longboat Key and its founder, Dr. Murray “Murf” Klauber; Plymouth Harbor, a prominent Sarasota retirement community; and Sandy Cove, a condo development on Siesta Key. Merrill, onetime president of the Sarasota County Bar Association, also worked on real estate development projects in Georgia, North Carolina and Nova Scotia, Canada.
Outside the law Merrill led an adventurous life, from hunting and fishing to flying planes. He also loved water skiing and snow skiing; when he was younger he and his wife, LaRue, performed with the Ski Antics Water Ski Show on the lakes of northern Minnesota during summers.
The younger Merrill says his father's legacy in legal circles and business, past clients and the firm he co-founded, was in two areas: honesty above all else and a motto that financial success doesn't equate significance. “He was as honest as the day is long,” says Bill Merrill. “And he had a big heart for the downtrodden.”
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