Andrew Bommer was born and grew to manhood in Alsace-Lorraine. At the age of twenty he migrated to the United States but worked for one year in Canada in a saw mill.

In Canada he met and married Elizabeth Mickels. The couple then migrated to Dakota Territory in the early 1880s and homesteaded in Heman Township on the North One-half of Section 10.

While Mr. Bommer farmed, he also worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad during the time that the trackage across Barnes County was improved. He related that he happened to be in Sanborn when the Cooper brothers first shipped in their wagons and supplies, driving northward to their extensive land holdings and starting the town of Cooperstown. When the branch line northward to Cooperstown was built, Andrew Bommer was part of the grading crew.

Andrew Bommer was fond of telling of life in the "old country" where it was impossible to make more than a bare living and where one was either very rich or very poor.

At the time of the retirement of Mr. and Mrs. Bommer they were the owners of 760 acres of land.

Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 33