A ten-year-old boy stood down near the front of the stage in the midst of his brothers and sisters, his dark eyes glowing and his curly head tossing to the rhythm of the gay old Italian folk song, ground out on the family melodeon by his sister Laura. It was the first public appearance of the future Andrews Opera Company, in their father's little Methodist church at St. Peter, Minnesota. Their audience was composed of the austere clergy and delegates from different sections of the state to the Methodist conference in that village 58 years ago.
    George Andrews, the youngster in the center of the stage, was, next to the melodeon, at that time the only one in the state of Minnesota, the feature of the program. His unusual appearance, marked by his brown skin, his fiery black eyes and a profusion of black curls, together with his tender years and natural talent, shook many a grim-faced spinster loose from her shell into a rhapsody of feminine enthusiasm.
    Following a series of group songs, quartets, trios and duets, young George stepped apart from his accomplished kin and did a few solos, playing his own accompaniment on a guitar.
    At the end of the program, the ministers sought out the pastor of the St. Peter church, and one by one asked for the loan of his seven children to present church concerts in their various towns. In that way the first tour of the Andrews company was booked through part of the state of Minnesota.
    The first short tour paved the way for others, and the children, fired by ambition and spurred by the enthusiasm of their religious audiences, worked overtime on their music at their little country home near St. Peter. They began to compose little dialogue stunts, giving each one a chance for individual characterization and full play to any particular musical talent.
    It was at an early stage in the game when the managerial instinct of George, the younger of the Andrews children, began to manifest itself, and his active mind conjured up plans for breaking away from the "gratis church performances" which netted only traveling expenses and experience, and breaking out for themselves.
    He confided his idea to his brother Ed, two years older than himself, and the two young culprits waited their chance. It came when, as they explained it later, the church elders in one of the cities "wanted to know whether or not we kids were living up to the letter of our religious training; in short, they wanted to know if we were all we were cracked up to be, and we said, 'No, and what's more, we don't intend to be. We're getting tired of you old fogeys trying to boss us, and as we aren't getting any more than our expenses out of this proposition anyway, we're going to pull out and book our own shows.'"
    And they did. But first they spent the entire summer in rehearsal at the ranch house and replenished their repertoire with popular light opera hits, including selections from the Bohemian Girl and Pinafore. They retraced the same territory in the fall, booking their concerts in school houses, dance halls or any other available meeting places they could secure, and drew capacity crowds in every instance. George, from the first, held the purse strings.
    The proceeds from the first year made it possible for the Andrews family to purchase what they had long wanted, a set of Swedish bells. Naturally musical, it was only a matter of a few months before each of the 10 children in the family could take his place at the bells, which it took only five persons to operate.
    Through the summer and part of the fall of 1874 the family remained at their father's ranch rehearsing with the new instruments and adding to their repertoire of songs.
    In October, they started out on a tour of the state, and the novelty of their entertainment met with such enthusiasm and immediate success that by the next year they were able to add to their territory the states of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. By the end of the first season the Andrews Bell Ringers needed little publicity throughout the territory where entertainment was scarce, and musical instruments of any kind were a minus quantity, with the exception of a few fiddles used at the country dances.
    In 1877, George Andrews and Ed left the family in Chicago on their way home from a tour, to accept parts in an opera company then rehearsing for the winter season. After playing two weeks, the Chicago company went broke and the singers were paid nothing for their services. But the Andrews brothers had profited by the experience. They had absorbed the professional idea and came back to the ranch house with a number of scripts for light operas, which they put into immediate rehearsal.
    Through their association with the Chicago opera company they were able to secure enough singers and professional talent to round out their company for its debut in light opera. Rehearsals for the first three productions, including Girofle and Girofla, Chimes of Normandy and the Doctor of Alcantara, took up three summer months at the ranch.
    In the fall, George booked the first opera for a one-night engagement in St. Peter. A hall in the court house was secured and sold out several days in advance to an overflow capacity. Many of the number turned away remained out in the yard, listening to the music through the open windows.
    Their first season in light opera lasted 30 weeks, during which time their route took in North and South Dakota, Montana, Iowa and most of the Middle West. As they went along they memorized new operas, often rehearsing in the halls or theaters after an evening's engagement until the early hours of the morning.
    With their second and third seasons they had a large repertoire of light operas and began extending their territory and enlarging their company. At that time there were only two other opera companies outside of New York, Emma Abbott's and Holman's, both of which adhered closely to the Middle West and western territory.
    Several of the Abbott stars came over to the Andrews company. One was the famous prima donna, Myra Morella, one of the leading sopranos of the day, to whom they paid the stupendous salary of $75 a week. Myra was gifted in both singing and acting, young, beautiful and popular. She proved a powerful asset to the company from the standpoint of prestige and box office receipts.
    The company made its tours in a fancy band wagon drawn by well-groomed and beplumed steeds, both quality and quantity increasing with the prestige and financial status of the company. Aside from music, the one all-absorbing passion of George Andrews was horses. He continually bought and sold as the company traveled through the country, and indulged his hobby to the extent of perfecting his band wagon team from two to six carefully matched and beautiful steeds.
    His dreams through the years was to discard the responsibility of managerial duties and buy out an estate somewhere removed from the hectic rush of life where he could pursue noncommercial art and specialize in thoroughbred stock to his heart's content. He realized that dream on the beautiful shores of Lake Tetonka, where the Andrews company purchased 300 acres of land and developed one of the most famous and unique resorts the country has ever known.
    Special excursions were offered on the railroads in the summertime to the beautiful resort, where crowds could sit on the lake shore and listen to the light operas put on by this famous company in the open air.
    But before the realization of that dream came the greatest nightmare of the artist's career, the details of which filled the newspapers of the day from one end of the country to the other.
    The company had been booked for an extensive tour through the country, from the state of Minnesota to the Pacific Coast, and down through the southern states as far as Washington, D.C., and return.
    It was shortly after New Year's when the company left St. Paul for Grand Forks, No. Dakota, and the weather was 49 below zero. The prospects of a trip up through the Dakotas at that time of year was anything but tempting in those days of crude railroad construction and meager accommodations.
    A special train was provided for the company, consisting of an engine, two baggage cars, a Pullman and a coach, and the train crew were given orders to take the trip slowly. A disobedience of the orders when the train was going over a particularly patchy and dangerous section of the line resulted in a heated word battle between George and the conductor late at night while the other actors were sound asleep.
    After the singer retired and was just dropping into a deep sleep, he sensed the train picking up a terrific speed. He sprang to his feet to pull the bell cord and summon the conductor for another tongue-lashing, when the train jumped the ice-glazed tracks and turned over to such an angle that the doors and windows of the coaches were pinned to the ground.
    The cars were filled with smoke and steam, and the 45 or more actors were stifling before they realized what had happened. Suddenly there was a burst of flames at one end of the car, and the bunch were thrown into a panic. It was then that the ever-active brain of George, the manager, saw a way. Climbing upon one of the overturned seats, he pounded one of the small windows near the ceiling of the car a mighty blow and broke the glass.
    He then boosted his brother Charlie through first, and gave him orders to help the women through from the other side as he lifted them to the window.
    Then began the superhuman effort to save the stifling, hysterical victims one by one. In 15 or 20 minutes the car was practically emptied, and the scorched, bleeding bodies of the panic-stricken actors shivered and quaked in the ice and snow.
    Ed Andrews, who, on account of the illness of his five-year-old daughter, had slept with her in the lower berth so he could wait upon her during the night, passed the child through to safety and then started blindly through the cars to find his wife "Nannie," the well-loved soubrette of the company, who with her maid had taken an upper berth.
    Fred Clayton, famous comedian, shouted from the outside that Nannie was safe, and the relieved singer crawled through the window and helped pull the other remaining victims through as his brother George thrust them to the opening.
    Finally George, almost overcome by gas and smoke, and suffering from burns from the flames leaping upon him, was almost ready to give up the struggle when he heard the hysterical shrieks of a woman down at one end of the car. It was the stout maid of the company's prima donna, who imagined herself hopelessly pinned beneath an overturned seat. In her crazy battling against his assistance it became necessary to break her arm and knock her almost unconscious before the weakened man could get her to safety. Then he himself crawled half through the window and lost consciousness.
    When he awoke he was in the baggage car, stretched across two boxes, a torn blanket covering his almost naked body. His wife was near him, half clad, rubbing snow on his bruised head, while around the car groped the dazed troupe, their teeth chattering from the cold as they rummaged through the open trunks and costume boxes for something--anything--to cover their scorched and bleeding bodies.
    Down the floor ran a steady stream of blood from the open gashes of the victims, and blotches of blood stained their faces and clothes. Shock and horror was written on every face of the chattering chorus as they told each other in jerky tones of their sufferings and that "Nannie" wasn't saved after all. She and her maid, they said, must have been closed in by the collapse of the upper berth, or else have perished in the flames.
    And the weary troupers, who had just enacted the greatest tragedy of their lives, rode down to  Brainerd in the two baggage cars, dressed in the costumes of clowns.
Medford Mail Tribune, February 19, 1928, page B5

    The smiling face of Miss Caroline Andrews, local girl and daughter of Ed Andrews, who for the past two years has won a lasting place in the hearts of eastern music lovers, was the inspiration for an attractive cover design on the March issue of Radio News.
    With her long, dark hair tied with a saucy red ribbon, the "Girl on the Cover" has her head thrown back and her red lips parted in a merry song. An interesting article in this issue of the popular radio magazine is accompanied by a black-and-white study of the young coloratura soprano, and a brief history of her triumphs in eastern musical circles.
    Beginning a few years ago with the DeKoven Opera Company, with which James Stevens sang for several years, Caroline, then a mere youngster, later sang with the Philadelphia Opera Company and recently in the original cast of the "Student Price" operetta.
    It was in the DeKoven Opera Company, which traveled from coast to coast playing revivals of the famous operas "Robin Hood" and "Rob Roy," according to the author, that Miss Andrews reached the rank of prima donna, singing the soubrette roles with sensational success. During the Philadelphia grand opera season, in which Chicago and Metropolitan grand opera stars took part, Caroline is said to have divided the honors with Florence Easton and Ricardo Martin in "Carmen."
    The prima donna is now one of the "Capitol Family" stars over the WEAF radio chain and has her large following who dial in every Sunday night to hear her. And the author ends his article by observing that the "glorious coloratura soprano is equally delightful whether she is heard in an ambitious operatic air or a simple, lovely ballad or folk song."

    Caroline Andrews is to give a concert in Medford this coming Friday night.
    This is more than a concert by one of the foremost coloratura sopranos of this country, however. It is the homecoming of the girl who, musically speaking, is Medford's most famous daughter.
    Most of us remember Caroline Andrews when she left this city many years ago, as an attractive, somewhat demure, miss, with a very pretty voice, who made a genuine hit whenever she sang and danced at the old Page Theater, but who did not seem destined for "big things" either on the stage or the concert platform.
    That old adage about "the prophet is not without honor save in his own country" held good as usual. Caroline Andrews not only made a success of the stage, but now ranks among the leading sopranos of the entire country.
    In this direction one fact will be sufficient for those who know anything about the musical standards of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Only artists of unquestioned excellence are ever allowed to appear with that organization. Caroline Andrews is one of them.
    But it is not entirely because she is a gifted and nationally recognized artist that we are urging everyone to attend this concert--though that fact is probably sufficient--but chiefly because she is a former Medford girl who has made good and is now the leading member of Medford's famous Andrews family--the daughter of Ed Andrews and the niece of George.
    The concert, therefore, automatically becomes a sort of testimonial to this unusual family, which has taken the musical leadership in this part of the state for so many years, and has been so active in every forward-looking movement in this community. Need more be said? More, no doubt, could be. But we are going to stop right here.
Medford Mail Tribune, June 24, 1928, page 4

    George Andrews died at his home on the Oak Grove Road last night about 8:30 o'clock, following a paralytic stroke Thursday. He was 69 years of age. Thirty years ago he was one of the foremost baritones on the American stage, and won high honors in the theatrical world, being one of the founders of the famous Andrews Opera Company.
    He was a sweet singer and a gentle soul and a man of many friends and noble qualities.
    Born at Lake Washington, Minnesota, November 29, 1859. He was the son of a Methodist minister, and of a family of ten children, all musical. Mr. Andrews was the head of the Andrews Opera Company up to the time he located here in Medford in 1910.
    Since locating in the valley he was interested in the orchard business and resided for a long time at the Bennett orchard on North Pacific Highway, owned by his brother, later purchasing the home and orchard in the Oak Grove district.
    Mr. Andrews was married twice and leaves a daughter by his first marriage, Mrs. Arlone Scutti of Chicago, Ill. October eighth 1908 he was married to Ella Stewart at Baldwin, Miss., and to them two sons were born, Charles Darwin, who died in 1912, and today is survived by his wife and one son, George Edward, aged 12 years. He also leaves two brothers, Dr. J. W. Andrews, Mankato, Minn., and Edward Andrews, New York City; also three sisters, Mrs. Mary Stone and Mrs. Florence Clayton, St. Paul, and Mrs. Alice Parker, New York City.
    The funeral services will be announced later. Funeral arrangements in charge of the Perl Funeral Home.
Medford Mail Tribune, February 24, 1929, page 8\