David Hardeman LeSueur, Jr., ("Harde LeSueur")
David Hardeman LeSueur, Jr., ("Harde LeSueur") (30 April 1909 - 16 June 1942 (1, 3) was born in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico (2,3) and lived most of his childhood in Cd. Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico (2,5). He was called "Harde" almost all of his life, and even published under that name.
His parents were both Baptist missionaries in Mexico (2,3), serving there from 1902 to 1935 (entry for Allie Vida LeSueur McCaig in Find a Grave (1)). His father was David Hardeman LeSueur, Sr. (1,2), (1 May 1866 - 23 April 1957 (1)), born in Milam Co, Texas (1), and his mother was Allie Roberts LeSueur (6 December 1876 - 15 October 1968), born in San Saba Co., Texas (1). When they retired, they left Mexico and lived in San Benito, Texas, where they are buried (1,2). (After Harde's death, his wife and daughters often visited the grandparents in San Benito in the summer.)
Harde's father was a "hellfire and brimstone" type of preacher (2). Everyone called him "Reverend LeSueur", except for his wife, who called him "Mister LeSueur". At one point he preached a disapproving sermon that was clearly directed at his only son, Harde. Harde never entered a church again (2). Harde's father was the son of Charles Marion LeSueur (1,2), 1824 - 1889 (1), who fought for the Confederate Army in the Civil War and has an entry in the Handbook of Texas On-line (6). He was born in Alabama and died in Georgetown, Texas (1).
Harde had 5 sisters, one older and four younger (2). According to his daughters (2), his older sister was Anita, while his younger sisters were XXX, XXX, XXX, and XXX (oldest to youngest). However, "Find a Grave" says that Allie Vida LeSueur McCaig was born before Harde, being born in 1906 in Morelia and returning to the United States at the age of 12 due to the Mexican Revolution (1). The only other sibling reported in Find a Grave (1) is his younger sister Claradine (LeSueur Amyx), who died in 2018 at the age of 103 (1, 2); her dates were 19 December 1914 to 17 April 2018, and while she was born in Austin, Texas, she grew up in Chihuahua (1).
According to Harde's daughters (2), the middle name "Hardeman" came from the Confederate Civil War Gen. William Polk Hardeman (1816-1898), who had also fought in the Texas War of Independence and the Mexican-American War, and who was a Texas Ranger as well (Wikipedia entry). According to Harde's daughters (2), Hardeman's troops bivoucked on the LeSueur property, presumably that of Charles Marion LeSueur in Williamson or Milam Co. where he had property (6).
Harde grew up in Chihuahua City (1, 2, 5) until his parents sent him to the San Marcos Baptist Academy at the age of 14 (2).
Harde went to university (University of Texas at Austin??). It is said that he minored in Geology and Spanish at the University of Texas at Austin (5), but it is not clear if this was during his undergraduate or graduate years nor what his major was if it was during his undergraduate years. He obtained a Master of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 1936, with the thesis "A Contribution to the Knowledge of the Flora of the State of Chihuahua, Mexico: A List" (4), and a Ph.D. in
1938 with the dissertation "The Ecology of the Vegetation of Chihuahua, Mexico, North of Parallel Twenty-Eight", which was published in 1945 (5) with only minor editorial changes (5). (I have not actually seen the dissertation nor direct record of it yet, but WorldCat entry for the 1945 publication notes that it was "printed, with slight revisions, from typewritten Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas, 1938". It is not clear where WorldCat got that information, because I do not find it (yet) in the 1945 publication itself, except for the part about minor modifications, mentioned in the Editor's Note.)
During the time of his graduate studies, Harde married Mary Alice Weaver (1,2), 3 October 1912 - 12 April 1976 (1), who was born in Hereford, Deaf Smith Co., Texas (1). Her upbringing in the High Plains of West Texas left her with memories, not always fond, of the wind of that area. They married on February 29, 1936 (leap day). Some years after Harde died, she married Curtis D. Anderson (16 July 1908 - 19 March 1991)(1), who had been a very close friend of Harde's (2).
During his (and their) time at the University of Texas, he/they lived in a garage apartment of the house of his aunt Olivia Drury LeSueur Moore at 2002 Whitis (now a parking lot by Dobie Center). Olivia worked for the University at the Little Campus and started the Visual Instruction Bureau, emphasizing the use of visual aids in teaching. Her husband Charles Moore died in World War One.
Very close friends of Harde's included Ernest Marsh and Curtis Anderson (2). Edgar Kincaid was somewhat older and more or less took Harde under his wing (2). Kincaid and Marsh both accompanied Harde at times on his Mexican collecting trips (2, JSTOR collectors info). In addition, his mother often accompanied him in Chihuahua as did other family members. He clearly knew J. Frank Dobie and especially his wife Bertha McKee Dobie through Edgar Kincaid (2), and collections by Bertha McKee Dobie from Chihuahua from 1934 at TEX must be from visiting with Harde or his family there.
Harde played the violin and the mandolin, and he wrote short stories (2). His daughters still have the instruments and the short stories.
The Find a Grave entry for Harde (1) says that he was an aquatic biologist. His daughters (2) say that he got an amoebic parasite from a slough of some sort in East Texas. When this was and how it fits into his career is unclear. There are collections from East Texas made by him (many with K. Smith) in TEX, mostly made in 1935. According to the daughters, there is a "LeSueur Point" on a lake in East Texas named after Harde (2), so clearly he had something to do with aquatic biology, as did his great friend Ernest Marsh.
Harde had a dog that travelled with him when it was a puppy, named Mrs. Smith. It lived long after Harde's death, reaching 17&1/2 years old, and there was great sadness in the LeSueur family when she died (2).
As to financing his collecting in Chihuahua, the unnamed editor of the 1945 publication (5), in the Editor's Note, states: "The University of Texas provided a truck; LeSueur met his other expenses on borrowed money which was repaid from the sale of duplicates of his plant collections..."
After his death, according to his daughters (2), his wife sold his own herbarium, presumably whatever specimens had not been otherwise distributed (and notes? field books?), to the Gray Herbarium.
(1) Find a Grave
(2) Info from LeSueur sisters (Anita and Mary Harde)
(3) Knobloch, 1979
(4) TW files
(5) LeSueur, 1945
(6) Handbook of Texas Online, entry for Charles Marion LeSueur
(Bio by David Riskind, Tom Patterson and Tom Wendt, 2025)