EVANS, ANDREW ROEBEN, was born in the usual way on May 31, 1931, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and died of natural causes on April 1, 2022, in Bradenton, Florida. In between he lived a full and thoughtful life, doing so in various places but for the most part in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Mr. Evans, aka “Bud” to family, “Andy” to friends, “Dad” to his children, and “PopPop” to his grandkids, was a family man. His mother, Marjorie, was a devout Roman Catholic and English maven, who loved and doted on her children and theirs, but none more so than her first-born Buddy, of whom she couldn’t have found a fault if it had been tattooed on his forehead. Bud’s father, Andy W., was an Errol Flynn–esque character, tall and dashing, who built things, things that lasted, one of those things being totem poles. Bud was preceded in death by Shirley (nee Kestel), his beloved wife of 57 years and guiding light. He leaves behind four children: Marc (Sharon), Donna (John), Curt (Cyndi), and Gwen; nine grandchildren: Travis, Eric, & Rebecca (Marc), Tyler, Andrea, & Jessica (Curt), and Sean, Grant, & Caroline (Gwen); two great-grandchildren: Ember & Ash (Sean); and three sisters: Sally, Becky (who so lovingly cared for him his last 5 years), and Tina. His other sister, Joan, died in 2018.

Dad was given a T-shirt some years ago that read, “As a matter of fact, I am a rocket scientist.” His most notable and longest tenured employment was with General Electric in their Re-entry Systems Division. The division was so named because the work entailed guiding Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (“ICBMs”) from out of the sky after having been launched back toward terra firma (i.e. Moscow, etc.). It was Dad’s job in GE’s Arming & Fusing Department during the heady 1960s and 1970s to assure that the US’s fleet of ICBMs struck their target and detonated. Fortunately, the world never got to see just how good he was at his job. After GE, Andy did consulting work on a wide array of engineering projects. He was sort of have-slide rule-will-compute kind of guy. Of course by then he was using computers. In fact he was one of the first to embrace the home PC.

Aside from being a rocket man, or aeronautical engineer, if you will, Andy wrote, read, and traveled extensively, and knew as much about how things worked, particularly electrical things, as anyone we ever knew. He loved Wagner’s operas, Steinbeck’s novels, and Stingers, of the cocktail variety not the surface-to-air missile kind. His temperament was pure “don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s all small stuff.” He was one easy going fellow.

Bud famously and courageously (and foolishly) once rode his friend Charlie’s brakeless bike down a steep and curvy gravel road. He parachuted 20 times while a lieutenant in the Army to earn his gold jump wings. He skied the slopes in Aspen, Vail, Stowe, Jackson Hole, and many other places. He visited 30 countries, including Turkey, Peru, Greenland, and Fanning Island, and all 50 states (some might say he got around). He wrote a novel that was deserving of a wide audience, was famous for his political satire poetry—a genre he perfected if he didn’t invent it, and composed many endearing sketches about the times of and people in his life. He wrote to amuse, provoke, and reminisce, and he did it exceedingly well. His writings and more are available on his website www.aerospace531.com and a slideshow titled “The first 90 years of Andy Evans” can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seuU7PahF6s.

In closing, Mr. Evans was a Gemini with his moon in Sagittarius, ascendant in Aries, with a host of favorable aspects. An astrologer, who once pointed this out to him, said it was “an absolute indication of a charmed life.” Although Mr. Evans concluded after studying the subject that astrology was a lot of nonsense, there’s simply no denying he lived a charmed life.

Family and friends are invited to attend a celebration of Andy’s life and the interment of his ashes at SS. Peter & Paul Cemetery in Springfield, PA, at noon on his birthday, May 31, 2022, followed by lunch at Anthony’s Ristorante also in Springfield. In lieu of flowers, donations to St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Andy’s name would be preferable.

Thank you all for coming today. It means a lot to me and I’m sure to all family.

Andy, Andrew, Bud, dad, pop-pop, Mr. Evans, we all knew him by different names. I knew him as dad.

Today, Dad would have been 91 years old, but he made it to 90 and that’s not too bad. To paraphrase Mickey Mantle If he knew he was going to live so long, he'd probably would have taken better care of himself. The fact that dad lived to see 90 attests to the benefits of modern medicine, good genes and living a low stress life. Some of you may have heard me compare him to a Timex watch – he took a licking but kept on ticking. Well, his was a life worth living. Married to a loving wife for 57 years, had 4 children with grandchildren and great grandchildren, wrote a book (that no one has read because a full copy has yet to be compiled), worked as a reliability engineer on cutting edge technology: the arming and defuse system for the atomic bomb, fusion reactors, military frequency hopping and the international space station just to name a few.

Dad graduated from Xavier University in Cincinnati (a Jesuit college) with an undergraduate degree in physics. He also attended the Universities of Detroit and Kentucky. During college he was in the ROTC program, and after college he did his two years as a Lieutenant in the US Army. During that time, he was a paratrooper where he jumped out of airplanes for the extra pay. He was very proud of his paratrooping; though, I don’t think he ever did it when he wasn’t paid for it (smart man). After the Army, he started his engineering career at GE in Philadelphia by acing its entrance exam.

After GE, he was an independent contractor. I remember him telling me once when he started working on the fusion reactor at Sperry in NJ that the guy that he reported to happen to be a stickler for being punctual to work, and his comment was, “this might be a problem.” Apparently, him being an outside consultant, allowed the guy to relax his punctuality stance to let Dad work his own hours where he did most of his work in the smoking area.

Dad was an easy-going guy, but he had his moments. Once when I was like eight, I had finished going out for Halloween, and we ran out of candy for the trick-or-treaters; so, I opened-up my pillowcase of candy for a group of teenagers, and they cleaned me out. I started to cry, and Dad ask what was wrong. I told him that these guys took all my candy, and he tore out the door. In about five minutes he came back with my candy.

Like all good dad’s, he imparted his words of wisdom. The one I remember most was rather basic. I had gotten into trouble at school onetime, and I kept on saying “but it’s not fair.” He retorted that life’s not fair, and the sooner I understand that the better. He was obviously right. I’ve used this with my own kids, but I changed the ending to tell them that life’s not fair and you should be darn glad it isn’t. I think Dad also lived an above fairness life.

He loved my mom dearly. They were venturous in their own way. Every year growing up, dad, mom, Gwen & I would go skiing and camping. We always went skiing on the east coast (in driving distance), but after Gwen and I left home, their ski trips moved out west to Aspen and Vail, Colorado. Dad was a wide slalom skier but moved fast down the slope (my mom not so much).

After my mom passed, the women of his life: Donna and Gwen and his sister Becky and my mom’s sister Joyce were all there for him, which he valued immensely. Donna and Gwen visited him often. Joyce was a phone companion, and Becky took care of him for those last few years.

As many of you probably know, Dad was never an early riser. He was more of a night owl. Him and Marc would spend many late evenings drinking beers (probably Schmidt’s or something equally bad) and discussing philosophy and other matters at the kitchen table. I would come by to his townhouse in Springfield regularly, and we’d discuss politics and religion late into the night – usually from somewhat opposite positions though we agreed more than our formal positions would suggest. He liked his stingers. He hasn’t gotten many converts. Tyler and I like them, and I’ve heard that Todd likes them; not sure of anyone else, but if he came to visit, you needed the stinger supplies: Brandy and Crème De Meth. It also made Birthday and Christmas presents easy. The usual for me was a bottle of VSOP.

When we are done here, I hope we can all go enjoy a stinger in his memory. Cheers to a life worth living.

Love You Dad.