In Remembrance: Eugene N. Riesman ’51 Died on July 2 2025

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Eugene N. Riesman passed away on July 2, 2025, fittingly for a man with connections to Canada and the US, just between Canada Day and the Fourth of July.

Gene was born in Boston, attended the Rivers School, graduated Yale (and the NROTC program), and then served in the US Navy. His family's New England–based wire and cable business brought him to Montreal in 1957. When the family business was sold, he turned to the real estate business, founding First Quebec Corp., and building many significant office towers in Montreal's downtown and elsewhere.

In Montreal, he met and married Janine Landau who had emigrated to Canada from Poland and then France after the Second World War. They had two daughters who would both eventually attend Yale, Diana Riesman ’82 and Joanna Riesman ’86. Following Janine's death in 1991, he married Sara Schmidt. They had 25 years together, with lots of travel, before she, too, died of cancer. 

No one was immune to Gene’s charm, his (relentless) telling of jokes; his appropriate and sometimes out-of-left-field anecdotes; recitations of Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, or limericks; his singing of sea shanties. He engaged every cab driver in every city in conversation. In addition to the casual conversations with strangers, he maintained deep friendships all over the world—friends from summer camp he had known for 80 years, Yalies, business acquaintances who became long-time friends, people he sent cartoons and jokes to, and many people he checked in on over and over again.

He loved tennis, skiing at Stowe, Vermont, sailing on Martha’s Vineyard. Gene loved Montreal and its neighborhoods but probably loved Mount Royal, the park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted at the heart of the city, most of all.  Gene had a plaque for Olmsted installed so that this visionary would be known to everyone who walked on the mountain; he served for many years as an enthusiastic member of the board of Les Amis de la Montagne.

Gene served for many years as president of the Yale Club of Montreal and maintained enduring friendships with Montrealers who made their way to New Haven. 

He was intelligent, cheerful and kind. Despite many awards and accolades—he was inducted into the Academy of Great Montrealers in 1993 and was named a Commander of the Ordre de Montréal in 2016—there was a delightful humility about him. He treated everyone with respect. He will be greatly missed.

—Submitted by the family.