Text: Anonymous, “Edgar Allan Poe's Last Friend,” Buffalo Sunday News (Buffalo, NY), vol. XXIII, no. 32, April 5, 1896, p. 13, col. 7

[page 13, column 7,continued:]

“I believe that mother's death removes the last of the personal friends of Edgar Allan Poe,” said Mrs. Minnie A. Phelps the other morning. Mrs. Aurelia Andre, of whom she was speaking, died Wednesday night, aged She had walked 14 blocks the preceding day and the overexertion is thought to have been the cause of her taking off, says the Chicago News.

“The poet Poe was a close friend of mother's,” continued Mrs. Phelps, “and I knew him when I was a child. We lived at Fordham, N. Y. It seems strange to think that he used to come to our house and play ‘Mother Goose’ with us. is an old game which I never see children play nowadays. Poe would romp about and enter into the spirit of our sports with as much eagerness as any of children displayed. The prize in the ‘Mother Goose’ game was a sugar plum, which we regarded as a great dainty.

“There was a particular feature about the way Poe prepared his manuscript that I have never seen mentioned anywhere. As he finished a page he would fasten it to the bottom of the preceding sheet until he had made a long He always wrote on legal cap paper. Father asked him why he fastened the sheets in such a peculiar way and he answered that the publishers preferred it. I frequently went to his house. He was living with his mother-in-law, who was also his aunt, as he had married his first cousin, and I would sit on the floor and roll up the manuscript for him. I liked it when I could make a big cylinder, five or six inches in diameter. Mother always defended the memory of Poe. At the time of his death it was claimed that he had been drinking and had ruptured a blood vessel in his head by falling. Mother held that he was stricken with apoplexy. He died while walking on the streets of Boston, and was on the way to take a second wife.

“Poe was a poor manager and even after he became famous was sometimes in great want. I have carried food and garden produce to him to relieve his necessities. He was the godfather of my brother, who was named for him.”

Mrs. Andre came West in 1857 and for a year lived at Peotone, a town which her brothers-in-law founded. Then she moved to Chicago and took up her residence on Randolph street, near the spot where Union Park is now located and not far from the residence of Reuben Taylor, one of the pioneers of Chicago, Financial reverses came to her in later years. Maj. Andre, her husband, who won his title in the French army, was a direct descendant of the British officer of the same name, who was captured and put to death during the Revolution. The family can trace its ancestry to 1620. Mrs. Andre's father was Dr. Charles Roessler, who received a medal from Napoleon for his services in the army. It is said that Mrs. Andre bore a great resemblance to the wife of Poe. She is survived by a son and three daughters.