In southern Jefferson County, the name Valle is like a perennial wildflower – it just keeps coming up.
There is Valle Township, Valle Ambulance District, Valle Lake and Valles Mines, just to name a few.
The family made its way from France to Canada to Ste. Genevieve and then to Jefferson County over the past nearly 400 years. Wherever the Valles go, they make an impact on the community.
In August, the Valle name was honored by the Project Pioneer Committee in Ste. Genevieve, where there is a street, four historic Valle homes and Valle Catholic Schools. There are many Valle descendants in that county as well as in Jefferson County, where there are 196 known descendants of one Valle branch, wrote JoAnn Thompson, one of those descendants, in a short history of the family.
That Jefferson County branch originated with Agnes and Noah Valle, married Oct. 2, 1923. They lived on Quarry Town Road in Ste. Genevieve and had 11 children – Glennon Valle, Etha Marie (Valle) Shadowens, Virginia Rose (Valle) Hunt, Helen Lavern (Valle) Watters, Simon Noah Valle, Vernetta Agnes (Valle) Naucke, Oliver Frances Valle, Shirley Ann (Valle) Higgins, Mary “Betty” Margaret (Valle) Castens, Stella Mae (Valle) Weidenbenner and Patricia Ann (Valle) Berry.
The family moved to Festus in 1942, and from there continued to multiply, Thompson wrote.
By the time Agnes passed away in 1989, in addition to their 11 children, the pair had 42 grandchildren, 63 great-grandchildren and 33 great-great-grandchildren.
Helen Watters, 88, rural Festus, is the oldest of the remaining children of Agnes and Noah Valle.
She said her parents were farmers in Ste. Genevieve but when they moved to Festus, Noah went to work for Pittsburgh Plate Glass. Later, he delivered ice along a route in Festus. Her mother went to work for Brown Shoe Co.
Watters said both her parents worked hard and the older children cared for the younger ones.
“Things were kind of rough back then,” she said.
The name Valle, originally La Vallee, is French, and means “valley.” The family has been traced back to 17th century France, where patriarch Pierre La Vallee boarded a ship and sailed to North America. He ended up in Quebec, Canada, and in 1665 married Marie Theresa La Blanc. They had 10 children. Their son, Charles, born in 1679, married Genevieve Marcow and they had 11 children.
“All of the Valles of Ste. Genevieve stem from this descendent Charles,” Thompson wrote.
The ancestor who brought the La Vallees to what would one day become Missouri was Francois, who left Beauport, Canada, and settled in Ste. Genevieve in 1749. He went on to establish the Valle Mining Co. to mine lead and eventually became the first commandant of Ste. Genevieve, under the auspices of Don Pedro Piernam, later governor of the Louisiana Territory, Thompson wrote.
Although established by the French, the territory west of the Mississippi was under Spanish rule at that time.
Thompson said Spanish influence caused the family to change its name from La Vallee to Valle.
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