[1] De Bra's grandfather, David Debra, born in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, died in Iowa in April 1897, aged ninety.
His ancestor Jacob Dubree, Debour, Dibry, Dippery, or Dibbery, had emigrated from France to Pennsylvania in the 18th century.
[1] His first published works of fiction were short boys' adventure books, which appeared under the pen name of Edmond Lawrence,[3] the first, Hazzard of West Point, in 1913.
[4] In November 1915, it was reported that after hiding in a closed wagon in a paint shop on Presidio Avenue, San Francisco, Deputy Internal Revenue Agent L. L. de Bra, together with a Deputy United States Marshal, had arrested a man called Patten for selling a quantity of morphine for $90,[5] equivalent to $2,711 in 2023.
"[7] Also in 1924, Doubleday reprinted the long de Bra Western story "Bandit of Devil's Own", about a US customs officer dealing with smuggling at the Mexican border, as a "Red Disc" book.
[6] On 7 October 1909, in Alameda, California, de Bra married Ida Mae Fritz (1888–1952), a native of Burbank, and in the early years of their marriage they lived in Oakland.
[1][15] They had three sons, Francis Lorenz, or Frank (1911), Eugene Edmond (1913), and Lemuel Warren (1915), and a daughter, Helen Lorraine (1917).
[16] A short obituary in the Panama City Pilot in February 1938 reported that Mrs. Helen Sabin had died in Lynn Haven, Florida, and that her funeral would be at the Roman Catholic church there.
[1] Lemuel L. de Bra died in 1954, and he and his wife are buried with his mother in the Bayview Memorial Park, Pensacola, Florida.