Edmund Schwesinger Obituary

Edmund Arno Schwesinger, Jr.
22 June 1939 - 7 May 2023
Longtime Greenwich resident, Edmund Arno Schwesinger, Jr., passed away from complications of a lung disease on the 7th of May 2023. He was in the ICU Unit of Yale New Haven Hospital, in the company of his close friends. Edmund was born in Manila, Republic of the Philippines, to Edmund Arno Schwesinger, Sr. and Dora Helene Axthelm Schwesinger, on the 22nd of June 1939. He was the eldest of four brothers, including: Davis Karl Schwesinger; Henry Eric Schwesinger (deceased), and Kent Stanley Schwesinger (deceased).
Ed would share the story of his father's friend, General Douglas MacArthur, liberating Manila on the eve before his entire family was scheduled to be executed by firing squad. He was six years old. His family had escaped Nazi Germany on one of the last passenger boats allowed to leave. When the war engulfed the Philippines, the family's status as both German and Philippine kept them out of prison camp. He lived his early years under house arrest. He would play with the Japanese soldiers at their machine gun nest at the end of his driveway, even climbing on the cannons on both sides of their home that overlooked Manila. His mother, Dora, would put all the children down to nap in the afternoons, not having enough food to feed them and trying to conserve their calories.
Edmund attended the notable American School in Manila for his elementary and high school education. After graduating from high school in 1957, he immigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1963. While attending St. Lawrence University on an ROTC Scholarship in Canton, New York, he met and married his loving sweetheart, Marjorie Daniel, on the 19th of September 1963.
Edmund was very proud of Marjorie's accomplishments. Marjorie's bachelor's degree in medical research culminated in a full-scholarship PhD program at NYU Medical School. She then became a researcher for the famous DNA discoverers, Watson and Crick, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. Sadly, Marjorie predeceased Edmund on the 20th of December 2021.
Upon completing his bachelor's degree at St. Lawrence in 1961, Edmund worked as a financial analyst for General Motors in Massena, NY; Saginaw, MI; and New York City, from 1961 through 1969.
He served as a First Lieutenant in the US Army Reserve from 1964 through 1968, which included two years of active service, one of them being in Vietnam. Returning to civilian life, Edmund attended Columbia University, where he received his MBA in 1968. After leaving GM, Edmund accepted a managerial position at Peat, Marwick & Mitchell in NYC, from 1970 through 1979. He then went on to be a principal with A.S. Hansen in NYC from 1980 through 1981. Edmund became a partner with Coopers & Lybrand in NYC from 1982 through 1988. In 1989, he assumed the chairmanship of Aster Ireland Ltd. in Milford, MA, where he worked on the development of a portable noninvasive glucose monitoring instrument. Edmund made one more career move to PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he retired as partner.
In the last year of Ed's life, he was able to realize his 20-year dream of building a hotel on his property in Times Square. He saved a stone from the demolition this past winter, upon which to have his Marjorie's name inscribed for the new building.
Edmund, a man of few words and deep feeling, truly loved the tranquility of sailing. His passion began as a teenager at The Manila Yacht Club, where he learned to sail as a Sea Scout. He became a member of The Indian Harbor Yacht Club in 1986, where he kept his beloved Concorde. There is no doubt he will be greatly missed in the years to come.
Edmund was preceded in death by his parents – Edmund Arno Schwesinger, Sr., a major stockholder of Benguet Exploration Gold Mine in Baguio, Philippines; and Dora Helene Axthelm Schwesinger, the daughter of the Mayor of Coburg, Germany, who was also a major manufacturer of toys, with offices in London and Germany.
Ed exemplified courage his entire life. He lived the iconic "Keep Calm and Carry On". He never complained. The glass was always full, his wry humor always at the ready. He would remind his close companions often:
"We're lucky"…