Andrew Stephen Massimino's Obituary
Andrew S. Massimino, 89, passed away peacefully at his Dallas, Texas home on August 24, 2024, in the company of his loving family.
Born in 1934 in Russellton, Pennsylvania, to Italian immigrants Enrico and Marguerite Massimino, Andrew grew up steeped in the values of family, faith, hard work, and caring for others. These values shaped his character and guided him throughout his life.
As a young child, Andrew watched his father go off to work in the coal mines every day while his mother tended a massive backyard garden that produced food for the family. Rich in love, the family’s financial means were modest, and Andrew, an outstanding student-athlete, did not envision college in his future. But one of his West Deer High School teachers, Miss Christine Lambert, saw something special in Andrew and encouraged him to seek a nomination to the United States Naval Academy. The power of that encouragement never left him, and it changed the trajectory of his life. He received a congressional appointment to the Academy in 1953 and headed to Annapolis.
During his four years at the Academy, Andrew excelled in academics, athletics, and leadership. He was a member of the “illustrious” Third Company, which achieved top ranking out of 30 his senior year. Perhaps an obvious choice to be President of the Italian Club, Andrew was also captain of the varsity baseball team and excelled at soccer, a sport he had never played before entering the Academy. He was a member of the varsity soccer team his junior and senior years and was selected All-American both years. In his senior year, Andrew was awarded the annual Thompson Trophy, which recognizes the midshipman who has done the most for the promotion of athletics at the Academy. (Roger Staubach and David Robinson later followed in those size 9 footsteps!) These accomplishments would eventually lead to his induction into the U.S. Naval Academy Athletics Hall of Fame. Andrew graduated with distinction in June 1957, an Ensign in the U.S. Navy.
After serving two years on the USS Boston, the world’s first guided missile cruiser, Andrew completed the US Naval Submarine School curriculum. In June 1959, he married his high school sweetheart, Frances Bonadio, of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, and they began their grand adventure of married life in spectacular fashion. With orders to report to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for service on board the USS Tiru, the couple embarked on an epic month-long honeymoon, driving their 1957 Chevy Bel Air across the country to San Francisco, where they boarded the SS Matsonia and headed to sea.
When he arrived on the base at Pearl Harbor, the commanding admiral, who had learned of Andrew’s athletic achievements at the Academy, gave the young ensign an unusual assignment: put together and coach a Sub-Pac basketball team that could beat the Marines stationed nearby. Andrew said “Aye, aye,” recruited players from all over the United States, persuaded them to join the Navy, and delivered a winning season. On the back of that success, Andrew’s next assignment from the admiral was to serve not on a ship or submarine, but as second baseman on the Sub-Pac baseball team. That experience featured a sports diplomacy tour of Japan and culminated in a Field-of-Dreams-type game back in Hawaii against the San Francisco Giants, who would go on to win the National League pennant the following year. Andrew often told the story of struggling against major-league pitching that day, but his family cherished hearing the real highlight of that game, where Andrew tagged out Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid,” at second base.
The young couple enjoyed their adventure in Hawaii, but after two years of trying to fit studying for his submarine qualification exams in between basketball and baseball games, it was time to get down to business. Andrew was selected to join the elite nuclear power program, and he and Fran were sent to Vallejo, California, where Andrew attended the USS Naval Nuclear Power School. After that, the reality of Navy life set in.
Seven moves in nine years—with a new child born at every other stop—kept life hectic and exciting. Following training at the operational reactor site in Ballston Spa, New York, Andrew began his nuclear submarine service in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the USS John Adams was under construction, and then with the USS Ethan Allen in New London, Connecticut, and later Newport News, Virginia. The family moved to Charleston, South Carolina in 1968, where Andrew qualified for command and completed an executive officer tour on the USS Haddo. During that period, with the Cold War in full swing, the Haddo was involved in clandestine operations crucial to intelligence gathering for which Andrew was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. It would be decades before his family knew any particulars of that story.
In 1969, Andrew was selected for early promotion to Commander and was hand-picked by the infamously particular Admiral Hiram Rickover, “father of the nuclear Navy,” to join his staff at the Pentagon. Andrew and Fran sold the house in Charleston—the first they had ever owned—and prepared to move the family to Washington, DC. But the universe had other plans.
In January of 1970, Andrew started experiencing intense headaches and sudden vision disruption. He reported to the ship’s infirmary and was immediately hospitalized. For weeks, as his health inexplicably deteriorated, the four children were watched over by supportive neighbors and shipmates, enabling Fran to spend most of her days by his side. As Andrew’s condition worsened and became critical, Fran was told to prepare for the worst. But a young Navy doctor, Paul Chodroff, refused to give up on the rising star. He suspected a brain abscess, but without modern diagnostic tools, the only way to confirm his hunch was exploratory brain surgery. That surgery saved Andrew’s life.
Thanks to Dr. Chodroff’s skill and courage, Andrew had the opportunity to live a full and rewarding life with Fran and their children—just not the one they had expected. The physical impairment left by the abscess—diminished peripheral vision and massive memory loss—derailed Andrew’s promising Navy career. At age 35, with four young children, he had to start over. While he considered many options—in real estate development, the nuclear power industry, even law school—ultimately, Andrew found his next great challenge and opportunity in Dallas, Texas, with Electronic Data Systems, a computer processing company founded and run by H. Ross Perot (USNA 1953). Hired directly by Mr. Perot without a title or even a clear career path, Andrew jumped right into the mission and the culture—do your job, build a team, and follow the chain of command. While his background as a nuclear engineer wasn’t directly relevant, Andrew adapted and quickly worked his way up the management line. He took "command" of the Data Center on Forest Lane, trained and mentored hundreds of young professionals getting their start in a new field, and wrapped up his time at EDS managing the health benefits program. After 26 years of hard work, loyalty, and contributions instrumental to the company’s success, Andrew retired to home life.
In those early Dallas years, Fran and Andrew discovered a new paradigm—co-parenting. Civilian life provided stability of place; they moved only once more, a half mile down the road a few years after
their fifth child (and only true Texan) was born. Andrew became an actively present father in a way Navy life hadn’t allowed. The adventures were mostly inland now as Andrew became Captain of the Station Wagon, steering the family through multiple summer vacations, often “home” to Pennsylvania. It was important for Andrew and Fran to visit family and connect their children to their roots. When the family outgrew the station wagon it was on to the passenger van, customized in Dallas Cowboys' colors. To further prove his new Texas pride, he bought the kids a horse named Star and rode her from the stables to the family home one Christmas morning. Andrew made time to coach youth soccer for a few fantastic years and 6th-grade girls’ basketball for precisely one. Known affectionately as “the Tic-Tac man,” Andrew’s fondness for the mint was betrayed by the rattle in his pocket as he ran practices and checked on injured players. That rattle meant help was on its way. He later took on leadership roles at Saint Patrick Catholic Church, serving as president of the Parish Council and then the Men’s Club. The call to serve never left him, even in retirement. When a former EDS colleague asked if he would be willing to volunteer with a non-profit, he leveraged his exceptional management skills and became a volunteer CEO with Medisend, developing their business plan and shipping life-saving medical supplies and equipment to communities in need all over the world.
Retirement years also allowed Andrew and Fran time to enjoy trips to Italy, Great Britain, Canada, and Mexico, cruises around Alaska and off the coast of Spain, and multiple visits to see their children and grandchildren, good friends, and of course, dear relatives. Andrew and Fran’s loving partnership—a model of stability, respect, and service to one another—is inspiring to many but especially to their children. Andrew and Fran never took their blessings for granted, and their gratitude was present and visible in their daily lives together. As each of their children chose life partners, Andrew and Fran’s actions proved their unwavering belief in family unity. They let all spouses know they were vital to the team and that they brought great enrichment to their lives.
One of the great unifiers the family shared over the years was a love of music, a constant in Andrew’s life. Listening to Enrico Caruso as a child and performing in a high school operetta later led to a varied record collection and ultimately introducing his children to the wonderful “music of his life.” The joy he found in singing and dancing—actively participating in music—was apparent to anyone within earshot or in sight of him at a wedding reception. At church, his voice could be heard booming with spirit. He cherished his time performing with the Dallas Town North Barbershop Chorus and participating in the Society for the Preservation of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America, where he was named Barbershopper of the Year in 1982. At home, whenever Fran sat down to the piano, she would call him in to revisit a few of their favorites, even if he sometimes made up the words (and if they were in Italian, no one knew the difference).
Andrew loved to cook, especially for a crowd. Food was his love language, and he learned it from the best. His mother’s gnocchi and biscotti, his sister Marge’s ravioli and nut roll, and so many other family recipes handed down on index cards smeared with tomato sauce and dotted with butter—these are the smells and tastes of a lifetime of deliciousness. Andrew made homemade pizza for parties and kids’ sleepovers and turned regular Sunday dinners into feasts—often accompanied by somewhat challenging cleanups! But if you ate at Andrew and Fran's table, you left happy and full—and sometimes with leftovers.
Andrew always felt that his life after the brain surgery was a gift, and he paid it forward in countless acts of generosity and kindness to colleagues, relatives, friends, and even strangers who he quietly helped in times of trial or trouble. His life was centered around love for his family, pride in his heritage, a devout relationship with his Creator and Redeemer, and loyalty to the country that gave him, a first-generation American, so many opportunities.
In his final weeks, Andrew enjoyed visits and phone calls from loving family and friends. There were many happy hours laughing together and reminiscing about a life filled with love and adventure and gratitude for so many blessings. The binders of photos and family history that Andrew painstakingly assembled over the last 15 years tell the story of his life and the family he and Frances built together. What a precious gift to his children, their children, and the generations to come.
Andrew was predeceased by his parents and his beloved older sisters, Theresa and Marge. Left behind to cherish his memory are his beloved wife of 65 years, Frances, and their five children: Elisa and husband Pierre Donahue and their children, Carmella, Mia, and Dominic; Michele and husband Joseph Corr; Maria and husband James Stanley and their children Olivia and Anthony; Andrew and wife Kelly Sanford and their children Rocco, Ramona, Desmond, Augustus, and Ignatius; and Julia and wife Lynda Vargha and their son, Jude.
The entire family will be forever grateful to all the nurses, lab techs, doctors, nurse practitioners, and staff at Texas Oncology Infusion Center in Dallas, who provided outstanding care over the last 18 months of Andrew's life.
Andrew lived a life that exemplified the adage: service is the rent we pay for living. His family hopes that you might consider honoring him with service—whether it's to your family, your spouse, your community, your God, a cause, or your country.
Visitation will be held on Wednesday, September 11, from 5:00-7:00 pm at Restland Funeral Home, 13005 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, TX 75243, followed by a Rosary (10:30 am) and Funeral Mass (11:00 am) on Thursday, September 12, at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Dallas, TX, 9643 Ferndale Road, Dallas, TX 75238. Inurnment will be at the U.S. Naval Academy Columbarium in Annapolis, MD.
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