Joseph Monier.

French landscaper. Joseph Monier (mahn-yay) was born into a poor farming family in Saint Quentin La Poterie, near Nîmes in southern France. He was the sixth of ten children. Little is known about his childhood. Joseph and his brothers helped their father in the fields and with landscaping. According to legend, when the local abbey suggested that the fourteen-year-old boy be sent to school, his mother refused, saying that Joseph was too smart for school and would get along fine in life without an education. At nineteen, he was sent to Paris to tend the garden of the duke’s palace. He used his evenings to teach himself to read and write.