Leland Blain Duvall was born June 19, 1911, to Omer and Esther Singleton Duvall, outside of Moreland, Pope County, Arkansas. Duvall grew up working on his father’s farm with his three younger brothers. Duvall completed eight years of school but dropped out of high school due to lack of money and patience. At the age of fourteen Duvall’s father encouraged Duvall to take the state teacher examination. Duvall passed the test, but the state deemed he was too young to teach. At the age of nineteen, Duvall taught elementary school at Oak Grove, Pope County, a few miles west of Moreland. After being paid in IOUs, Duvall decided to quit teaching and returned to agricultural work. Throughout the Great Depression, Duvall moved around the Mississippi Delta and West Texas working in cotton gins, sawmills, and harvesting. Duvall returned home in 1941, after Pearl Harbor was attacked and was drafted in 1942. Duvall was stationed at Camp Cooke, California and began writing to Letty Jones of Pottsville, Pope County. Letty would later become his wife two weeks after his return from Europe on November 3, 1945. During the war, Duvall was a reconnaissance scout with the Fifth Armored Division. He was in the wave of heavy armor and troops that went ashore at Omaha Beach several weeks after the beachhead was established on D-Day. He fought in five European campaigns and was awarded five bronze stars and the Purple Heart for bravery and meritorious service. In the spring of 1946, Duvall enrolled in Arkansas Polytechnic College (now Arkansas Tech University) in Russellville. In 1947, while in school, Dean Alfred Crabaugh, recommended Duvall for the editing job for the Daily Courier Democrat at Russellville. Duvall edited for the newspaper until 1955, when he joined for the statewide newspaper Gazette. Duvall retired from the Arkansas Gazette in 1990, and returned to Crow Mountain where he died February 18, 2006, and is buried at Bowden Cemetery.