Dates

• Existence: 1937 - 2019

Biography

Elizabeth Dunkman Riesz was born in 1937 in Rochester, New York and spent most of her childhood in New York state. She began attending Smith College in 1954. Two years later, her father became a Fulbright Scholar at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan and Dunkman suspended her education to join her family there. This experience was the beginning of an enduring relationship with the country and its culture. After graduating from Smith College in 1959, Dunkman pursued a Master of Education at Harvard University and began her career as a teacher, curriculum writer and educational consultant. She later earned a PhD in 1981.

Dunkman married Peter Riesz in 1968. The couple moved to Iowa City where Peter Riesz was a professor of business at the University of Iowa. In 1972, their daughter, Sarah, was born with Down syndrome. At the time there were few resources available for parents of children with Down syndrome and it was not unusual for parents to send their children to an institution. Riesz chose instead to raise her daughter at home. She published a book about Sarah’s early childhood in 1978, First Years of a Down's Syndrome Child. It was translated into Japanese in 1984.

After the birth of her daughter, Riesz became an advocate for services for disabled people and their families in the Iowa City area. She served as president of Arc of Southeast Iowa (formerly the Association of Retarded Citizens) from 1977-1982, and pushed for more educational and employment opportunities for students with special needs. Her book Let’s Cook! (2010) provided simple recipes for adults with special needs in independent or supported living situations. In 1997 and 2000 she brought her work abroad by traveling to Japan and speaking about the programs and resources available for people with disabilities in Iowa. Riesz also worked with a group from Osaka, Japan that visited Iowa to see these programs in action in 1998 and 2006. Elizabeth Riesz passed away in 2019.

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