Andrew Henry Weekes Hessman, 76, of Bryn Mawr, PA, died Sunday June 21, 2009 after a year battling esophageal cancer. In addition to Father's Day and the first day of summer, it was his 76th birthday.

Born in Altoona, PA, Andrew was the fourth child and youngest son of John Joseph Hessman of Ratoath, County Meath, Ireland and Anne Elizabeth ("Betty") Hessman (née Weekes) of Altoona, PA.

He is survived by his beloved wife, Eileen Marie (née Long) Hessman; his son, Sean M. Hessman of Bryn Mawr, PA; his daughter Annamarie Hessman of Rosemont, PA and New York, NY; his brother James D. Hessman (USN, Ret.) of Fort Washington, MD; his sister Sr. Patrice (née Anna Kathleen) Hessman of Kingston, Mass.; his sister Shelagh Van Saanen, of Bethesda, MD and a multitude of cousins, nephews and nieces in the Washington, DC and County Meath, Ireland vicinities.

Andrew's early years were spent during the Great Depression on German Hill in Altoona in the heart of a large extended family instrumental in the building and operation of the Pennsylvania Railroad. During the second world war, while his father was deployed with the marines to the Pacific Theater, his mother took a job in Washington, DC with the War Department, necessitating the sudden relocation of the family shortly thereafter to an apartment on Columbia Road in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC.

Andrew attended Sacred Heart Grade School ('48) and won a scholarship to St. Paul's High School (now St. Augustine's). At age ten he took over his brother James' paper route and doubled its size, working full-time until his high school graduation in 1952.

Growing up in Washington, DC fostered a unique and multicultural life experience. In Adams Morgan his little skipper ki dog (a gift from an avuncular friend) often sat on the now-gone trolley tracks on Columbia Road until the driver got out of the trolley and moved him to the side. He was an avid student of multiculturalism and martial arts, counting among his best friends a master of the martial art of Bondo.

While enrolled at Catholic University of America, he worked nights at the U.S. Post Office main station and many other jobs, including five years in the US Army, helping his brother Jack run a TV repair business on Georgia Avenue, and some time in Deaconess Hospital in Boston as an inhalation therapist.

He returned to CUA to complete his A.B. in Biology, where he met his "Little Eileen." He graduated from CUA and married Eileen Marie Long of Philadelphia, PA in 1966, after which he began working on the Apollo project at Univac - tracking rocket launch doing systems and programming. He then moved his growing family to Wilmington, Delaware and trained in financial systems and programming at Dupont. Later he worked for Levin-Townsend in computerized banking systems, then the Federal Reserve in Philadelphia, then Provident National Bank (now PNC), from which he retired after many years of service. He earned his MS in Software Design and Engineering from Villanova University.

During his retirement, Andrew volunteered for numerous organizations, including Recordings for the Blind and Disabled; Aid for Friends; and St. Malachy Catholic Community in North Philadelphia. He also finally took the time to learn more about some of his many and diverse interests, taking courses in Russian language, screenwriting, carpentry, Irish Studies and the writing of Byzantine iconography in the Russian school.

Friends will be received from 9 to 10 a.m. Saturday, June 27th at St. John Neumann Catholic Church, 380 Highland Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA (www.sjnparish.org), immediately prior to the Funeral Mass, which will be held at 10 a.m. that same day. Interment will be private.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial contributions be made to Friends of St. Malachy School, 1429 N. 11th St, Phila., PA 19122.