Culled from January, 1908 issues
of The Andes Recorder — 100 Years AgoTHE NEWS IN AND ABOUT ANDES

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Events of a Week as Chronicled by the
Man on the Street

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Mrs. James Elliott, who has been at the sanitorium at Cornwall-on-the Hudson, for several weeks, arrived home Wednesday. [Ed.: These were the days of treating tuberculosis through a stay at a sanitorium.]
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Andes was visited by another thunder shower, accompanied by lighting, Monday evening-quite phenomenal at this time of year.
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The Andes Creamery Company have men at work moving the old creamery building across the Tremperskill stream onto their new lot. It is a very slow job. [Suppositions by Jim Andrews: After the high school vacated their building on Lower Main and moved into the old Collegiate Institute building and became Hilton Memorial High School, the old high school building became a creamery and was added on to. This sat on the site of George Ballantine’s present residence. Some of the railroad pictures show this creamery across the brook. The two creameries on the railroad side of the Tremperskill were the Co-op Creamery and the D&E Railroad Creamery. This burned down, as did many creameries.]
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At the masquerade ball on Tuesday there was a good turnout and the costumes were fine and unique. The prize winners for the best costume were Walter J. Armstrong as Bufilo [sic] Bill, and Lillian Ballantine in fancy costume.
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James Armstrong, a former resident of Andes, died at Walton, Thursday evening, January 9, and would have been 87 years old in May. He was born in Roxburyshire, Scotland and with his parents and three brothers and three sisters came to America in 1840, and settled in Bovina. In 1845 he came to Andes and lived here until about 22 years ago, when he removed to Delancey and a few years ago went to Walton. [JA: The James and Walter Armstrongs mentioned in this column are ancestors of present-day Bob Armstrong.]
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Mrs. John Jackson and son are ill with the measles at Ed Gladstone’s in Gladstone Hollow. Others are exposed. [JA: Measles was considered a serious disease in those days, causing blindness and even death. Quarantine was probably instituted in many cases.].
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The “Big Store on the Corner” was purchased Tuesday by J. W. Dickson, the present occupant, from the estate of John W. Bramley, late of Bovina. [JA: This, of course, is the building that houses Cantina. Clifford Dickson, long time owner of the house now owned by Merna Popper, worked in this store right after it was purchased and eventually purchased the business and ran it well into the 1950’s.]
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The weather the first of the week was very spring like. Two years ago on the 21st the thermometer registered 78 degrees. Fires were uncomfortable and doors were left open.
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Francis Heimer, who has been with his son, Dr. Heimer, at Hamden, has returned to Andes and is with his dauter, Mrs. M. A. Marx. April 1, he will take possession of his house adjoining the United Presbyterian church and Mrs. Agnes McLean will keep house for him.[JA: At this time Francis Heimer would be an elderly man. He did his painting in the 1840’s and 1850’s. He at one time owned the house belonging now to Walter Baker next to the school and had a livery in the barn behind the house. He painted wagons in a shop on the second floor. It was very common for elderly men (and younger bachelors) to have someone, such as older widows or women in need, to clean, cook, do laundry and other household chores. Many times it would be a sister or other relative. Francis Heimer was a local painter who did the window shades for almost every business in Andes and Delhi as well as doing work in homes. June Ruff and John Hopkins have false fireplace insert paintings -circa 1848, signed by Heimer. He also painted two backdrops for the stage in the old Town Hall (over Brooke’s) – one was a classical theme of water lapping at Grecian columns, and the other was a painting of Main Street Andes. The fate of these backdrops is not known.] ~