ADVERTISER DEMOCRAT • July 5, 2025
A thankful community is gathering Tuesday to remember one of western Maine’s most steadfast preservationists, Andrea Burns passed away June 23. She taught for 25 years in South Paris. Her retirement in 1996 came at an opportune time for McLaughlin Garden, a Paris landmark that could have been lost. Burns was critical to preserving the McLaughlin homestead. She then began a mission to save the Norway Opera House block, lobbying to have it be included on Maine Preservations list of most threatened buildings. When three properties of the Higgins-Crooker Trust were endangered, Burns once again organized a rescue. And when perhaps the most fabled landmark on Main Street, The Gingerbread House, was in danger of being demolished, Burns and others founded the Norway Landmarks Preservation Society, raising the money to purchase and move the three-story building to a new site in 2011.