Born: 1879
Died: July 7, 1974
Married: Nettie M. Wilkins
Children: Mrs. Nellie L. Dashnaw
Alexander Angus LeRoux, also known as "Curly," was a singer who sang for the guests at Paul Smith's Hotel. On one occasion, the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso was in Malone for a performance. Paul Smith sent a buckboard to get Caruso and bring him to Paul Smith's to listen to Curly. Caruso was impressed! Paul Smith paid for Curly to attend college at Utica. Curly then toured for a few years with Caruso.
Curly was in San Francisco for a performance with then great earthquake struck. He was staying at the Palace Hotel on Market Street. Curly threw his trunk out the window and returned to Lake Placid.
Curly was the grandfather of Lex Dashnaw. Lex has a portrait of his grandfather, and he still has the trunk from the San Francisco earthquake.
-- as told by George Pappastavrou, at an event in Lake Placid on April 30, 2014, and again in November 2019.
Alexander LeRoux is buried in the Pleasant View Cemetery in Lake Placid.
Lake Placid News, July 11, 1974
Alexander Angus LeReux [sic]
LAKE PLACID -- Alexander Angus LeReux, 97, died Sunday morning at Placid Memorial Hospital after an illness of several months He was born in Fort Covington, the son of Moses and Adeline Amell LeRoux.
Mr LeRoux was a protege of Enrico Caruso who discovered him singing for the guests at Paul Smith's Hotel in 1901. Caruso and Paul Smith sponsored LeRoux’s studies in Utica and New York.
He then toured the United States and Canada with the Faust Opera Company through 1906. They were giving a performance in San Francisco when the earthquake of 1906 devastated that city. Mr Caruso and the entire company lost their voices for several months because of their experiences in the earthquake. In addition to his own roles with the company, Mr LeRoux was Enrico Caruso's understudy.
Due to ill health. Mr. LeRoux came to Lake Placid in the summer of 1906. Here he met and married Nettie M. Wilkins of Wilmington on Sept 6, 1906. In 1907 he opened a barbershop at 424 Main St which he operated until his recent illness.
Mr. LeRoux was a pioneering radio personality in Saranac Lake (WNBZ) and Plattsburgh in the '30’s and ‘40’s. Under the sponsorship of Monte Fisher of Saranac Lake, he broadcast a program of songs and French-Canadian dialect poems and stories He wrote most of his own material, printed volumes of French-Canadian dialect poetry and stories, and composed many songs, the latest of which is “Shadows Are Calling on Dear Old Placid Lake.”
“Curly” as he was locally known, had many hobbies and interests. He was one of the first to introduce fancy skating (so called then) at the Lake Placid Club in 1914. He tried many inventions among which were a “perpetual motion machine” and a bag for carrying skis which could convert to a stretcher in emergencies. “Curly” was an avid rockhound and at one time owned what he called his rock farm near Keeseville, where he found many semi-precious stones and minerals.
Mr. LeRoux is survived by his daughter. Mrs Leo (Nels) Dashnaw; two grandsons, Lex of New York and Bloomingdale, and Ted of San Jose. Calif.; Also three great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. His wife died July 16, 1968.
The funeral service was held at 11 am Tuesday at the Clark's Funeral Home. The Rt Rev. Msgr. William LaVallee officiated.
The family asks that those wishing to remember Mr. LeRoux make contributions in his name to Placid Memorial Hospital.
