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Hattie Andre

Photo courtesy of Ellen G. White Research Center – São Paulo Adventist University Center.

Andre, Hattie (1865–1952)

By Milton Hook

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Milton Hook, Ed.D. (Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, the United States). Hook retired in 1997 as a minister in the Greater Sydney Conference, Australia. An Australian by birth Hook has served the Church as a teacher at the elementary, academy and college levels, a missionary in Papua New Guinea, and as a local church pastor. In retirement he is a conjoint senior lecturer at Avondale College of Higher Education. He has authored Flames Over Battle Creek, Avondale: Experiment on the Dora, Desmond Ford: Reformist Theologian, Gospel Revivalist, the Seventh-day Adventist Heritage Series, and many magazine articles. He is married to Noeleen and has two sons and three grandchildren.

First Published: August 18, 2020

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Hattie Andre was a missionary, Bible teacher, and educational leader influential in the formative years of three Adventist institutions of higher learning.

Bible Worker

Hattie was born on October 5, 1865, at French Grant, Ohio. Her ancestors were among a group of French settlers assisted by the American government when defrauded by a land developer in the 1790s. The farms were located in what became Scioto County on the southern border of Ohio. Hattie’s parents were Claudius Cadot Andre and his wife Mary Jane (Lamb), third generation settlers in the French Grant. Hattie had two younger sisters, Rosina Jane (b.1867) and Mae (b.1875). Sadly, Claudius died prematurely in 1880.1 It was about that time that Hattie’s mother became a Seventh-day Adventist. Her three daughters also joined the faith subsequently.2

In 1884 Hattie enrolled at Battle Creek College. After a year of study she returned to Ohio to engage in church work, first with the state tract society in Columbus and then as a Bible worker in Columbus, Cleveland and Toledo, and then in Chicago, Illinois. She returned to Battle Creek College in 1890 and graduated with her teaching certificate in 1892. During the summer of 1892 she enhanced her studies with introductory courses in hydrotherapy and healthy cooking.3

Missionary Teacher

Late in 1892 Hattie Andre was selected to sail with the “Pitcairn” as a missionary teacher in the South Pacific. The vessel departed from San Francisco on January 17, 1893, its first stopover being Pitcairn Island. Hattie disembarked at this isolated outpost, bringing some quality teaching for the young people and assistance with their religious services.4

She remained until the “Pitcairn” called again in June 1896. At that time she boarded the vessel for its return voyage with plans to sail only as far as Samoa and then board a steamer because she suffered badly with sea sickness on sailing ships.5 However, there was no steamer available at Samoa so she courageously remained with the “Pitcairn” for a circuitous return voyage that lasted five months, calling at Tonga and Fiji, and making an exploratory sail past the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and the Solomon Islands to Pleasant Island (now Nauru) and Honolulu before reaching San Francisco on November 27, 1896.6

Educational Leader

Following her return to the United States, Hattie resumed evangelistic labor as a Bible instructor, this time in Louisville, Kentucky. Then, in the Fall of 1897, she joined the faculty of Oakwood Industrial School (now Oakwood University), Huntsville, Alabama, just founded the previous year. She served two years at Oakwood, nurturing development of the fledgling institution.7

Hattie Andre was back in the South Pacific in 1900. A call for her services was made at the Avondale School for Christian Workers (now Avondale University College), Cooranbong, Australia. She was given charge of the teacher training department and elementary school where the practical training took place.8 She nurtured many young people who, in turn, became missionary teachers like she had been on Pitcairn Island. Her time at the school saw the training program increased from one year to a two-year course with additional units such as general history, book-keeping, algebra, hydrotherapy and cooking.9 She also introduced Wednesday meetings for the promotion of missionary endeavors in the neighborhood and overseas.10

After nine very productive years at the institution, Hattie returned to the United States via India, the Suez Canal and Europe.11 On arrival she attended the May 1909 General Conference in Takoma Park, Washington, D.C., as one of eight regular delegates from the Australasian Union Conference.12

In 1909 Hattie Andre joined the faculty of the former Healdsburg College for the first year of its operation under its new name, Pacific Union College (PUC), at its new locale, Angwin, California. She served as dean of women and teacher of a course that surveyed the writings of Ellen White.13 At the time she arrived the school had only five teachers. When she left in June 1920 the number of teachers had grown to over 40, dispersed among a growing list of academic and manual training subjects.

Dean Andre departed from PUC in 1920 in order to assist her sister Rosina with the care of their mother, Mary Andre, who lived in Illinois. Rosina had been matron of the Hinsdale Sanitarium, west of Chicago, since 1907.14 Hattie continued her career as an educator, teaching Bible courses in the nurses’ training school at Hinsdale Sanitarium and serving as a member of the Hinsdale Academy faculty. She retired from full-time institutional service in 1929. She and Rosina continued to care for their mother until she passed away in 1931.15

Legacy

Hattie Andre remained in the Hinsdale area during her retirement years and continued with vigorous involvement in Sabbath School work and other church activities. She passed away on November 19, 1952, and was laid to rest in Bronswood Cemetery, Oak Brook, Illinois, in the same plot as her mother and her sisters Rosina (d.1935) and Mae (d.1948).16

Before her death, Andre Hall, a new residence hall for young women was completed on the campus of Pacific Union College in 1949 as a “monument to the worth of Hattie Andre, and the esteem in which thousands of Seventh-day Adventists hold her memory.”17 A few days prior to her death a similar residence was named Andre Hall at the Australasian Missionary College where she had served fifty years earlier.18

Sources

Andre, Hattie. “Missionary Meetings in the Avondale School.” Union Conference Record, September 15, 1902.

Annual Announcement of the Avondale School for Christian Workers. Cooranbong, New South Wales: Avondale Press, 1902.

“Avondale School Faculty for 1900.” Union Conference Record, January 1, 1900.

“Delegates to the General Conference.” General Conference Bulletin, May 14, 1909.

Gates, E. H. “The Polynesian Mission Field.” Home Missionary, January 1895.

Graham, John E. “News From the Pitcairn.” ARH, September 1, 1896.

“Hattie Andre obituary.” ARH, March 19, 1953.

“Hattie Andre.” FamilySearch.org. Intellectual Reserve. Accessed February 1, 2021, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/L4B2-BQG.

“Hattie Andre.” Find A Grave Memorial no. 115383778, August 13, 2013. Accessed February 5, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115383778/hattie-andre.

Hollister, M. A. “Rosa J. Andre obituary.” Lake Union Herald, February 19, 1935.

“Mary Jane Andre obituary.” ARH, April 2, 1931.

S. C. “Dedication of the New Building.” Australasian Record, January 19, 1953.

“We are pleased to state . . . .” ARH, December 1, 1896.

Weniger, Charles E. “Life Sketch of Miss Hattie Andre.” Australasian Record, March 9, 1953.

Notes

  1. “Hattie Andre,” FamilySearch.org. Intellectual Reserve, 2021, accessed February 1, 2021.↩

  2. “Mary Jane Andre obituary,” ARH, April 2, 1931, 29.↩

  3. “Hattie Andre obituary,” ARH, March 19, 1953, 28.↩

  4. E. H. Gates, “The Polynesian Mission Field,” Home Missionary, January 1895, 6-10.↩

  5. John E. Graham, “News From the Pitcairn,” ARH, September 1, 1896, 564.↩

  6. “We are pleased to state . . . ,” ARH, December 1, 1896, 772; “Hattie Andre obituary.”↩

  7. “Hattie Andre obituary”; Mervyn A. Warren, Oakwood! A Vision Splendid Continues, 1896-2010 (Huntsville, AL: Oakwood University, 2010), 16-17, 34-35.↩

  8. “Avondale School Faculty for 1900,” Union Conference Record, January 1, 1900, 8.↩

  9. Annual Announcement of the Avondale School for Christian Workers (Cooranbong, New South Wales: Avondale Press, 1902), 15.↩

  10. Hattie Andre, “Missionary Meetings in the Avondale School,” Union Conference Record, September 15, 1902, 3-4.↩

  11. Charles E. Weniger, “Life Sketch of Miss Hattie Andre,” Australasian Record, March 9, 1953, 8.↩

  12. “Delegates to the General Conference,” General Conference Bulletin, May 14, 1909, 1-2.↩

  13. “Hattie Andre obituary.”↩

  14. M. A. Hollister, “Rosa J. Andre obituary,” Lake Union Herald, February 19, 1935, 6.↩

  15. “Mary Jane Andre obituary.”↩

  16. “Hattie Andre,” Find A Grave Memorial no. 115383778, August 13, 2013, accessed February 5, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115383778/hattie-andre; “Hattie Andre obituary.”↩

  17. Weniger, “Life Sketch of Miss Hattie Andre”; Walter C. Utt, A Mountain, a Pick-Ax, a College: Walter Utt’s History of Pacific Union College, 3rd ed. (Angwin, CA: Pacific Union College, 1996), 119.↩

  18. S. C., “Dedication of the New Building,” Australasian Record, January 19, 1953, 4-5.↩

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Hook, Milton. "Andre, Hattie (1865–1952)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. August 18, 2020. Accessed October 02, 2024. https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=A8VQ.

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Hook, Milton. "Andre, Hattie (1865–1952)." Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. August 18, 2020. Date of access October 02, 2024, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=A8VQ.

Copy to clipboard Download Word File

Hook, Milton (2020, August 18). Andre, Hattie (1865–1952). Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. Retrieved October 02, 2024, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=A8VQ.

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