Delcer Solomon Strickland (1888-1973)

From the Atlanta Constitution, March 12, 1933.

  For many years a leading citizen in Douglasville, Georgia, Delcer Solomon Strickland was a former city attorney and school board trustee who served two terms in the Georgia House of Representatives. Born in Draketown, Georgia on November 14, 1888, Delcer Solomon Strickland was the son of Solomon Wilson (1860-1939) and Mary Geneva (Patman) Strickland (1861-1940). A graduate of the Buchanan, Georgia high school in 1909, Strickland enrolled at the University of Georgia, where he earned his law degree in 1913. In the following February he established himself in practice in Douglasville, where he resided for the remainder of his life. 

  In December 1913 Delcer Strickland married Mary Kate Roberts (1890-1970) in Buchanan, Georgia. The couple's fifty-six-year marriage saw the births of five children, Jennie Lynn (1915-), Helen Dawn (1916-2015), Robert S. (1923-1997), Delcer Samuel (died in infancy in 1926), and Daniel Stephen (1931-1991). 

  Following his marriage, Strickland was elected as Douglasville city attorney, and beginning in 1925 sat as a member of the Douglasville high school board of trustees. In 1928 he was elected to the Fifth Congressional district's Democratic executive committee, and two years later announced his bid for a seat in the state legislature. He won the election in the fall of 1930, and during the 1931-33 session served on the committees on Education, General Judiciary No.2, the Georgia State Sanitarium, Insurance, and Uniform State Laws.

  

From the 1913 University of Georgia "Pandora" yearbook.

  Reelected in 1932, Strickland's second term saw him named to the several new committees, those being Amendments to the Constitution, No. 1; Education No. 2; Motor Vehicles; Public Highways No. 2; and Public Utilities. He would also chair the committee on General Judiciary, No. 2. In addition to those committees, Strickland also sat on the Sisk committee, a special body that "investigated alleged job selling in the department of agriculture." 

  One year after leaving the legislature Strickland announced his candidacy for the Georgia state senate. Hoping to represent the 29th district (comprising Douglas, Cherokee, and Cobb County), Strickland was opposed by another oddly named man, Alpha Alsbury Fowler. A former state representative himself, Fowler defeated Strickland that September, 1,110 votes to 828. Following his defeat Strickland resumed his law practice in Douglasville and was a leading club-man in Douglas County, being a Mason and a past potentate ambassador for the Yaarab Temple Shriners.

  Delcer Strickland returned to politics in the 1950s with his time as County Attorney for Douglas County. His full dates of service remain unknown, and in 1970 suffered the death of his wife of nearly sixty years, Mary. Following her death, he remarried to Alma Pritchard Cole (1904-1994), who survived him upon his death on April 7, 1973, at age 84. All three were interred at the Douglasville City Cemetery.

From the Atlanta Constitution, April 19, 1973.