Leon “Andy” Anderson, NH legislative historian in 1931 with his book, “To This Day: The 300 Years of the New Hampshire Legislature.” Photograph copyright of his daughter Susan Anderson Manning–used with her permission.
Leon W. “Andy” Anderson came from humble, blue collar beginnings, but his personal drive to understand the meaning behind political events, led him to become a noted New Hampshire historian. I was first introduced to his name, when I browsed a curious and valuable book called “New Hampshire Women Legislators Golden Anniversary 1921-1971” (that was co-prepared by Leon W. Anderson, Mrs. Alice V. Flanders and Edward J. Gallagher).
He was born Carl Leon William Anderson in 1902 to Swedish immigrants, Gustaf and Alma (Hasselind) Anderson, in the town of Graniteville, Massachusetts [now called Westford]. Both his father and step-father were stone cutters, working at one of the several granite quarries of the area. It is only fitting that he would migrate to the “Granite State” to harvest granite himself.
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she stuck her head out of the door as he knocked, and sobbed, “If you had sent me a fifty-cent one with two hearts on it, I might have been all the world to you. John; but for a five-cent one, never-r-r.” And he sat down on the steps and wondered if girls would ever understand the depression in business.
