Culled by Judy Garrison
With commentary by Jim Andrews
From July 1920 issues of
The Andes Recorder
100 Years Ago
WEEK IN AND ABOUT ANDES
Events of a week as chronicled by
the Man on the Street
Clarke A. Sanford, publisher of the News, was here Tuesday from Margaretville.
The residence of James Mable at the foot of High street has been treated to a new dress of paint. [Jim Andrews: This house, of course, is mine and, ironically, much of it is getting a fresh coat of paint this summer!]
COME HELP CELEBRATE
Andes will celebrate on Monday, July 5th, so plan to come. The events of the day will include various sports at 10 a.m. Starting at noon there will be a big parade headed by the Andes Military Band. At the conclusion of the parade about the village, a patriotic address will be given. The address will be followed by a game of base ball between the Andes and Arena teams, and an exciting game is promised. In the evening the Band will give a concert and this will be followed by movie show, The Miracle Man, and the music will be furnished by a six piece orchestra. Following the movies there will be dancing. The farmer who is miserly enough to buy oleo is certainly too cheap for the American standard of living and ought to be deported to Russia or China.
Teachers home for the summer vacation are: Irving Gladstone from Chateaugay, N.Y.; Lillian Graham, Spring Valley; Louis McCumber, Huntington, L. I.; Marguerite Fowler, Tuxedo; Nell Dowie, Delhi; Elizabeth Bruce, Fleischmanns.
Irving Gladstone and Miss Lilliam Graham have entered summer school at Columbia University.
STRICKEN IN YOUNG MANHOOD
[Excerpted from long Obituary for John Duncan Bruce]
John Duncan Bruce died in St. Luke’s Hospital, New York City, on July 6th, after an illness of several months. He was the son of Mrs. M. Linn Bruce by her first husband, the late John Knapp of Treadwell. He was born in Andes on June 29, 1889 and was educated in New York City where Mr. and Mrs. Bruce reside.
When the president called the National Guard of this state into the Federal Service in 1916, for service in Mexico, he enlisted in Co. E 7th New York regiment and went with it to the border….With the 107th United States Infantry he was sent to France. He later served with distinction with the 27th Division in Flanders…He contracted trench fever and later was gassed and taken to the Beaufort Hospital at Bristol, England…In March last he was stricken with ulceration of the stomach, possibly caused by the mustard gas which overcame him while at the front.
He was a favorite in this community, universally popular and will be missed by a host of friends.
Graham Frisbee, the young son of Dr. and Mrs. Jay D. Frisbee, was operated upon Thursday for adenoids and removal of tonsils. Dr. Pace was the surgeon. [JA: Graham Frisbee was the proprietor of “The Drug Store”—now Paisleys—from the middle 1950s through the late 1970s. Dr. Frisbee, his father, was our local dentist.]
A giant concrete mixer mounted on a catter-pillar [sic] tractor has arrived in Delhi, for mixing the concrete for the new state road thru the village. The dry material will be conveyed to this mixer in small cars loaded at the railroad and run on a track which is to be laid for the purpose. The curbing is practically complete.
A recent bulletin of the United States Department of Agriculture shows that in the year 1919, Delaware county was fifth in hay acreage and second in hay average. It was third in average yield of buckwheat, first for average yield of silage corn and tied for second place for oats.
Thursday was St. Swithin’s day and there was clouds and rain. According to an old adage this means rain for 40 days. [JA: I can remember Pete Hanlon, a former owner of Gladstone and Hanlon’s General Store, and who managed the Andes Cemetery for 20 years, relying on St. Swithin’s Day for the general weather forecast for the summer. If it rained on St. Swithin’s Day, the summer would be wet; if it was nice that day, the summer would be dry.]
The police at Main street and Delaware avenue was put out of commission Tuesday evening by some motorist with no more brains than the silent cop. [JA: I am assuming that this was the forerunner of the stop light at the corner, and apparently some “brainless” motorist ran it down.]
John Terpak has purchased of Harry Tremper his farm near Arena, consideration of $1,900. Possession will be given about Sept. 1. Mr. and Mrs. Tremper will move to Shavertown where he is principal of the village school.
The State road thru the village is being patched. It is in very bad shape and patching does but little good. [JA: Some things never change.]
The two weeks between July 12-27 showed the lowest temperature for July in 21 years. The mercury went as low as 38 degrees.
Otis McCumber [former owner of the Ethel Edwards house, now the home of Daphne Haddock] and James Bruce [the Buffy Calvert house] have had their residences wired for electric lights. [JA: In last month’s Gazette, we included a news item about the Lt. Gov. Matthew Linn Bruce summer home being wired for electricity. I’m not sure if this wiring was to accommodate the village Delco system (battery powered direct current) or was for the alternating current “high line”. It was about this time that many homes in the village began to make use of electricity. I am thinking that since Judge Bruce had his house wired, that he might have paid to have his brother’s house (James Bruce) on Delaware Avenue wired at the same time. Following the death of their father, Rev. James Bruce, in 1913, money for the two remaining Bruce children living in the house would have been in short supply and Judge Bruce being the generous man that he was, might have seen to it that his brother and sister still living in that house could benefit from electricity.]