Dwight O. Leslie is numbered among the representative young business men of Bryan, judicial center of Williams County, where he is proprietor of the Bryan Monumental Works. His establishment is equipped with the best of modern facilities, his stock of monuments and other mortuary memorials offers at all times a wide range for selection, and the highest grade of workmanship is assured in all products turned forth from the establishment.
Mr. Leslie was born in Stark County, Ohio, September 1, 1883, and is a son of Amos and Samantha (Watkins) Leslie, of whose eight children all are living except one. Amos Leslie was born and reared in St. Joseph County, Indiana, whence he came to Ohio, where he later married Miss Samantha Watkins, who was born in Carroll County, this state. For a number of years Mr. Leslie has been engaged in successful market gardening near Canton, the judicial center of Stark County, his political support being given to the republican party and both he and his wife being active members of the Reformed Church.
Dwight O. Leslie gained his early education in the public schools of his native county and supplemented this by a course in a well conducted business college in the City of Canton. He then entered upon a practical apprenticeship in the monument business, and in the early years of his application to practical work in this line he received compensation of only one dollar a day. As a skilled workman he eventually commanded good salary, and he was finally made foreman of a leading monument concern in the City of Canton. He remained with this firm ten years and then, in 1914, came to Bryan and purchased a half interest in the business of E. B. Willett, the style of the firm now is the Bryan Monumental Works. The effective service given by the Bryan Monumental Works has gained to the concern a substantial and representative supporting patronage, and the high-grade work turned out constitutes the best advertising asset of the enterprise. Mr. Leslie is a progressive not only as a business man but also as a citizen, and is a republican in his political proclivities. He and his wife are active communicants of the Lutheran Church, in which he is an elder, and both hold membership in the local organization of the Pythian Sisters, he being, in 1920, the chancellor commander of Bryan Lodge, No. 221, Knights of Pythias, besides which he is affiliated with Bryan Lodge, No. 215, Free and Accepted Masons.
In 1908 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Leslie to Miss Ada Warley, of Carroll County, and they have one son, Harold, who was born December 4, 1910.
Source: Bowersox, Charles A. ed. A standard history of Williams County, Ohio: an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development , 2 vols. Publisher Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co. 1920.