Born: March 5, 1935
Died: October 29, 1973
Married: Margaret C. Cherry
Children: Neal Andrews, 1 daughter
Loring B. Andrews, Jr., known as Larry, owned the Western Auto store on Main Street from 1966 to his death in 1973. He was president of the Saranac Lake Chamber of Commerce and of the Unitarian Fellowship. He taught physics at St. Pius X High School and mathematics at North Country Community College. He was active in the Cub Scouts, and a member of the Rotary Club. He played cello with the Plattsburgh Community Orchestra.
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and educated at Andover Academy. He earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1957. Before coming to Saranac Lake in 1966, he did defense work on radar installations across the country for Sperry Gyroscope Corporation on Long Island. He was the son of Dr. Loring B. Andrews, a Harvard-educated insurance executive and astronomer who was a specialist in sunspot activity and its influence on world weather; Dr. Andrews served as executive secretary of the Harvard observatory.
He is buried in Pine Ridge Cemetery.
Source: Adirondack Daily Enterprise, October 30, 1973
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, November 1, 1973
Larry Andrews, a unique person
We will all miss Larry Andrews, whose life was cut in mid term by unkind fate.
He lived many lives in Saranac Lake, a community he and Margaret chose as a proper setting for a quiet but deeply meaningful life.
Larry was a man of many sides. To the general public be was a wizard with mechanical devices and took a particular joy in keeping things running, yet he was very skeptical of a mechanical world, and modern plastic-type business evoked typically blunt comments of displeasure.
He was, in a word, devoted by choice, to a vision of a world where individual effort on a local level could be translated into personally meaningful achievement.
His administration as president of the Saranac Lake Chamber of Commerce marked a revitalizing of that institution.
Tart in expression, Larry was not overbearing and would bow with grace in the face of majority disagreement while never backing away from his own convictions.
Fellow members of the Chamber remember well that he favored the controversial private land use plan for the Adirondacks but presented a spirited opposition to it on behalf of the Chamber board at the Saranac Lake public hearing.
The quality about Larry that is most incredible now is that such vitality as he had could be snuffed out by a meaningless quirk of fate — and yet, not snuffed out, because it lives so sharply in the minds of everyone who knew him.
In the last few days, it has been impossible to walk along Main Street without seeing his image. One sees him joking with passersby as he helps to unload a truck in front of Western Auto, dashing across the street in shirtsleeves or sweater — often on the coldest of days — for a mid-morning coffee break, stopping along the way to exchange greetings or opinions.
For Larry had opinions — and some were blisteringly strong. Well-backgrounded, they ranged through local affairs to national politics with a sounding off that bristled with conviction. He never did anything half-heartedly, whether it was insulating his house, helping Neal fly a kite on Mt. Pisgah, cooking up a batch of hamburgers at his camp, introducing a speaker at a public function or Unitarian meeting — one recalls the grace with which he presided over a Chamber of Commerce Tribute to Dr. Chester Buxton. He studied commodities as fervently as he took up the cello, rushing off in summer twice-weekly to Meadowmount with Margaret, Leslie and Neal — and any other who wanted a ride — for the music that superseded all his other interests and manifold activities.
We can remember several occasions wheeling a broken bike into the Western Auto store only to find the proprietor in the back playing away on the cello.
Classical music filled the store all of the time, from the radio when he was too busy to play himself.
Larry prided himself on his MIT engineering degree, but that pride never prevented him from answering a call from any friend in distress to repair an appliance, change a lock, or patch a broken window. He had sophisticated knowledge of the world, but he chose to live simply with his family in Saranac Lake because he sought lasting values and found them here in community action with his friends.
He once said he'd found his greatest happiness amid the beauty of the Adirondack countryside, which he knew well.
In the short time in which Larry lived here he made a deep impact on this area and gave to this community warm memories that will neither cool nor [illegible] with time.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, November 16, 1973
Fall concert dedicated to L.B. Andrews
PLATTSBURGH - The Plattsburgh College Community Orchestra will dedicate its annual fall concert to the memory of Loring B. Andrews of Saranac Lake. Mr. Andrews was a cellist in the orchestra and died on Oct. 29 in an accident on the way to an orchestra rehearsal.
The concert, open to the public, will be at 1 p.m. Sunday in the large auditorium of Hawkins Hall at Plattsburgh State University College.
Dr. Angelo LaMariana will direct the orchestra. David Hoffman will be the featured artist…
