LEON LALLIER is extensively and successfully engaged in the production of fruit and garden products near Denison, where he finds a splendid market and all that he raises commands the highest city prices. A native of France, he was born on the 10th of November, 1834, his parents being Louis Thomas and Mary (Robertson) Lallier, who were natives of France. The father died in Texas at the age of eighty-eight years, while the mother’s death occurred in Kansas when she was seventy-seven years of age. They came to America with their family when their son Leon was seventeen years of age, arriving in the United States in 1852. The father established his home in the state of New York and afterward removed to Wisconsin, where he purchased a farm which he used for florist and market gardening, making his home thereon for about thirty-six years. He afterward came to Texas and his last years were spent in this state.
Mr. Lallier of this review remained a resident of Wisconsin for thirty-six years and there followed market gardening, in which he was very successful. He also had a fine greenhouse, which he erected. In 1885 he came to Texas, settling about a mile southwest of the corporation limits of Denison, where he purchased one hundred acres of land on which some improvements had been made. He has since added to this property and now has one hundred and thirty acres, of which ninety acres are under cultivation. On the farm is an excellent orchard of about eight acres planted to apples, pears, peaches and plums, and in addition to fruit raising and the production of vegetables he does general farming. His property is now well equipped with modern improvements and there is a deep well and a windmill to supply water for irrigation purposes. The land is sandy with a clay subsoil and is very productive as is shown from the fact that Mr. Lallier has gathered strawberries to the value of four hundred dollars and blackberries to the value of two hundred dollars from one acre. The crops are almost unfailing and in fact there has never been a season in which the farm has not produced a profitable crop. Mr. Lallier is oen of the pioneers in the production of fruit, berries and vegetables and has demonstrated the value of this section of the country for that purpose. He now has sixty acres of timber land with a fine growth of timber, which he prefers to save rather than place the tract under cultivation.
Mr. Lallier was married at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in 1860, to Miss Julia S. Sholet, a native of Syracuse, New York, of French parentage. At Syracuse Mrs. Lallier’s faher was one of those prominently engaged in the salt industry, a capable business man well known in that vicinity. Mrs. Lallier, inheriting the wholesome ideals of character and activity, and is also one of the esteemed women of the social life of her community.
Mr. and Mrs. Lallier have nine children, of whom eight are living: Frank, a resident of Wisconsin; Louis, of Texas, who married Maud Simonson and has four children; Ralph, Ethlyn, Louis and Charlotte; Leonie, the wife of Burt S. Clark, by whom she has five children, Gladys, Leon, Frank, Kenneth and Esther; Leon Lallier, Jr., of Wisconsin, who married Maud Annas and has two children; Charles, who wedded Lulu Wordsworth, who taught in the public schools of Dension and has three children, Wesley, Paul and Elsie; Esther, who is teaching in the public schools of Dension; Burt, who is a civil engineer in government service in Panama; and Rene, at home.
In politics Mr. Lallier is independent, caring nothing for office but preferring to give his time and attention to his business affairs. He now has an excellent property and his farm is the visible evidence of his life of thrift and industry, for he has prospered as the years have gone by, not because of any inherited fortune or favorable combination of circumstances, but because he has labored persistently and earnestly for success.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. I, p. 622.