Mallerin became a mentor to Francis and encouraged his efforts in rose breeding. Years later, Francis honored his mentor by naming a rose after him, the dark red hybrid tea, 'Charles Mallerin'. At the meeting, Mallerin introduced the Meillands to the American businessman, Robert Pyle, who represented Star Roses Nursery in the U.S. Pyle would later sign an agreement with the Meillands, allowing his company to introduce their roses in the United States. Francis travelled overseas after his mother, Claudia, died of cancer in 1932. He drove across the U.S. to pick up new ideas in rose breeding and cultivation. During this trip, he met again with Robert Pyle. Pyle's company introduced Meilland's first successful rose variety, 'Golden State', bred by Francis before 1937; it was introduced in America in 1938. The name was chosen to commemorate Francis's visit to California. During his U.S. visit, Francis viewed Star Rose’s color photo catalog and when he returned to France, he added photos to Meilland's annual rose catalog with great success. The nursery sold every rose advertised in the catalog. During his travels overseas, he learned how cut roses were grown in winter in Colombia. He later had greenhouses built in Kenya to grow the Meilland's nursery's cut roses during the winter. In America, Francis also learned valuable information from Robert Pyle about the American rose market, where the patenting of plants began in 1930. He returned to France and began trademarking the Meilland roses. The 'Peace' rose Francis was a talented and prolific rose breeder, and is best remembered for developing the legendary 'Peace' rose. In 1935, he cross-pollinated roses ('George Dickson' x Souvenir de Claudius Pernet') x ('Joanna Hill' x 'Charles P. Kilham'). This cross resulted in an unnamed seedling that was later crossed with 'Margaret McGredy. Francis thought the resulting Hybrid tea seedling of this second cross was very promising. It had dark green, healthy foliage, and beautiful cream-yellow blooms with edges of pink. He noted the seedling in his records as #3-35-40. Louisette and Francis were married on January 14, 1939. They worked together at the Meilland nursery in Tassin-la-Demi-Lune, collaborating on the selection of new rose varieties; Louisette was the administrator for the nursery. Months later, right before Germany's invasion of France, Francis sent cuttings of the new rose cultivar to fellow rose growers in Germany, Italy, and Turkey, and also to the Conard-Pyle company in the