FATHER: Charles Edward Andre
(1856-1932)
MOTHER: Anna Romkey (1867-1943)
MARRIED: Hilda ("Tudy") Van Gerpen
(1894-1976)
September 23, 1914 (Hartsburg, IL)
CHILDREN:
RUTH JEANETTE ANDRE (KNEPP) (1917-1996)
Bette Virginia Andre (Farmer) (b.1923)
Occupations: Lawyer, state legislator, accountant
Read a short biography of Dale Andre from the 1917-18 Iowa Official Register.
Bopop was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 1916 at the age of 27, making him the youngest person at that time to ever serve in the state legislature (by one year--serving at age 28 was Rep. Frank Oertel of Keokuk, who also had the distinction of being blind). His first day as a representative was the inauguration of January 11, 1917. But he would only serve one term. Nana always said that he quit because, in his words, "You can't stay in politics and stay honest."
According to his letterhead from the early 1920's, Bopop's law offices were in rooms 5, 6, and 7 of the Hedge Building in Burlington, and his phone number was 2882.
Aunt B. gave me the following information about her father:
"Dad took care of us all for a while, cooked meals when Mom worked at Wards, took care of Kris in the afternoons while I went to college, and paid the down payment on our first house and on your grandparents first house. His mother left him money when she died and he gave it to his children. ... He had such a wonderful voice that he, like Caruso, could break a vase across the room just with his voice. He also won a shorthand and typing test in Des Moines, Iowa and was offered a job there as a court reporter ... (as well as) a role with the metropolitan opera in New York because of his voice. ... He studied for the law all by himself as an apprentice, took the exams and beat the guys from Harvard. ... Part of the reason we all have brains in this family is because of your great-grandfather."
Nana proudly told me of one time when he stood up for her. Daniel Knepp didn't approve of his son Dan marrying Ruth Andre (for a variety of reasons), and shortly after their 1936 marriage he accused Nana of getting married because she had gotten pregnant. Nana went back to her parents' house in tears, telling her parents what Grandpa Dan had said. In a fit of anger Bopop's sole reply was, "That goddamned son of a bitch!" He called Grandpa Dan to chew him out, and his end of the conversation wasn't much better than his reply to Nana. She told me that for once in his life Grandpa Dan was shocked speechless, and never again levelled the charge that Nana got married because she had to.
Several years before his death, Bopop was told that he was suffering from terminal leukemia and only had about four months at most to live. His angry reply was that he had too much left to do, and set about trying to find ways to extend his life--which he succeeded in doing to some extent. But those last three years took a severe physical toll on him, and pictures of him taken during that time show a man who looks nearly twenty years older than his chronological age. By this time Bopop was doing the books for several grocery stores in Peoria, and Nana was having to run him from store to store because he no longer had the strength needed to drive himself.
When he died in August of 1950, he was not buried in the Andre family crypt in Aspen Grove cemetary--at his stipulation. Instead, his lone marble gravestone rests just to the side of the crypt, a few feet away. (Coincedentally, a few more feet away on the other side is a iron-fenced plot for an Adams family of Burlington.)
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