Bernard Landou’s Legacy of Service

We pay tribute to our longtime colleague and friend, Bernie Landou, who passed away at age 90. He was a veteran of the United States Military and served in the Korean War. He spent several decades working professionally in the business of public relations and enjoyed recounting his legendary assignments and encounters with celebrities. Upon retirement he indulged his love for fine cuisine by attending the French Culinary Institute in New York. He enjoyed sharing his skills to impress friends and family and went on to teach inmates at the Rikers Island Correctional Facility, to cook.

Bernie was affected by age-related macular degeneration and rose to the challenges of vision loss, with the support of his partner of 50 years, Dick Leonard. He became a volunteer with the Association for Macular Diseases at Manhattan Eye & Ear Hospital. He answered phone inquiries and requests for information and contributed to the quarterly Eyes Only Newsletter. He loved helping others with useful tips for daily living and low vision friendly recipes. His volunteer service, with the Association, led him to assume the role of Editor for the newsletter in 2007, then President of our Board of Directors in 2017.

**Bernie Landou at 85 and as a young man in the US Military.**

We applaud Bernie Landou for his years of enthusiastic service to people with macular diseases and low vision, as he found his own way with increasing vision loss. He possessed a sharp wit and a special gift for stating the obvious. He pointed out, as we were about to launch this website in partnership with Ophthalmic Edge, that “nobody knows how to spell Ophthalmic,” and he was right. We shortened our website name to “OE Patients” to resolve that conundrum. Thanks Bernie!

Here are 6 of Bernie’s articles, originally written for Eyes Only, now published on OE.