1907 – 1977 (October 3)
Joseph Vincent Hennessey was born on February 6, 1907 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania to William V. Hennessey and Elizabeth O’Connor, and was baptized there on February 24, 1907, at St. Aloysius Catholic. He attended Augustinian Academy, Staten Island, New York, and was received into the novitiate on August 15, 1926. He professed simple vows on August 16, 1927, and solemn vows on August 16, 1930. He earned a B. A. in Philosophy from Villanova College, Villanova, Pennsylvania, in 1931, and pursued theological studies from 1931 to 1935 at Augustinian College, Washington, D. C. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 12, 1934, and did additional studies at Catholic University of America, Washington.
Father Hennessey was assigned in 1935 to teach at St. Augustine High School, San Diego, California. In 1942 he was affiliated to the newly founded Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel and was assigned to St. Rita High School, Chicago, as a teacher of woodshop. When Mendel Catholic High School opened in 1951 on the campus of the former Pullman Free School of Manual Training, Chicago, Father Hennessey was transferred there. There he taught woodshop and mathematics. Because of declining health, he retired in 1973 to St. Monica Monastery, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.
In September, 1977 Father Hennessey became more seriously ill. His condition seemed to improve, and he traveled to Pottstown at the end of that month to visit his family. Shortly after arriving there, he again became ill, and died October 3, 1977 in Pottstown of an aortic aneurysm.
He was originally buried at St. Mary’s Hall Cemetery, Villanova. When that cemetery was relocated to the Augustinian plot at Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, Father Hennessey’s body was transferred there.
