Eugene Riesman

Born in Boston, to Joseph and Sadie Riesman, Eugene was the youngest of three brothers. He entered Yale in 1947, taking an unauthorized year abroad in the newly formed State of Israel before graduating. He then served in the United States Navy, being assigned, luckily, to the Atlantic fleet despite the ongoing Korean War. 

In 1957 he came to Montreal to set up the Canadian operations of his family’s wire and cable business. Gene fell in love with Montréal and made it his home for almost 70 years.  He also fell in love with Janine Landau, a dark-haired beauty, who had come to Canada following World War II, from Krakow and then Paris.  They married and had two daughters, Diana and Joanna, living downtown, and then in an elegant Westmount home near Murray Hill Park.

Following the sale of his family’s business, Gene started a real estate development company, First Quebec Corp., and changed the face of downtown Montreal, especially along McGill College Avenue. Gene and First Quebec developed numerous handsome skyscrapers which were connected with the Metro and each other underground. He loved his work.

After Janine’s death in 1991, he married Sara Schmidt, another striking, intelligent woman with an accent. They had twenty-five happy years together on Forden Avenue and then on Wood Avenue; Gene was a loving stepfather to Alexandra and Daniel Reitman.

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; his ability to connect any mention of a city or place with some historical fact or travel memory. 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, 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 and was for years an avid player at the Mount Royal Tennis Club, frequently with his daughter Diana. He loved skiing at Stowe. Sailing, another of his passions, nurtured by childhood summers on Martha’s Vineyard, was a pastime he shared with Joanna.

Gene appreciated Montreal and its neighborhoods but probably loved Mount Royal most of all. He took his daughters on weekend walks in every season; the best ones ended with a hot chocolate at the Chalet. He would expound on the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, the park’s landscape architect, to anyone who would listen. Gene had a plaque for Olmsted installed near the Lookout so that this visionary would be known to everyone who walked on the Mountain. Gene served for many years as an enthusiastic member of the Board of Les Amis de la Montagne.

Until recently, he traveled all over the world and loved nothing more than sitting in cafes or rooftop bars, in Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv, or Ithaca, NY.  He was almost always up for another espresso or one more Campari and orange juice. He had a genuine curiosity and lust for life.

Despite his success in business and numerous accolades and awards – Gene 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 never bragged. He was as courteous to a young man parking his car as to a bank president; he treated everyone with respect. 

True to his family tradition, he devoted much time, energy and personal resources to charitable causes, including Montréal Children’s Hospital, the McGill University School of Medicine, the Jewish General Hospital and Israel Bonds. Gene helped many Montrealers in their careers by way of scholarships in urban design and landscape architecture at McGill and the Université de Montréal. In memory of Janine, a research fund was established in Oncology at the JGH as part of the McGill University Cancer Center. He was a supporter of Yale and Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

Gene is survived by his four grandchildren, who called him Grandpa Geno or GG: Isaiah and Elliot Riesman-Tremonte, Theo and Nora Cowett; by Diana and Fred Cowett; by Joanna and Michael Tremonte; by Alex and Jesse Brown and their children, Jacob and Maya; by Daniel and Tatiana Moses; by nephews and nieces: Bob, Jean, Beth, Nicole and Elan. He was predeceased by his brothers and their wives, Robert and Marcia and Martin (Mickey) and Ninette; by his sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Magda and William Weintraub; and by Janine and Sara. He had great love for his family.

Diana and Joanna would like to express their gratitude to Nancy and Janette, who took great care of their father and treated him with exceptional kindness. Their dedication, thoughtfulness and care made the last difficult years, after Sara’s death and through the pandemic, so much better. They are eternally grateful.

He will be greatly missed.

Graveside service on Friday, July 4, 2025 at 2:00 p.m. at the Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom Congregation Section, Mount Royal Cemetery, 1297 ch. de la Forêt.