Ex-Grumman engineer Eugene Reilly dies

Anne Reilly remembers watching the moon landing in 1969 with her husband, Eugene Reilly, from the couch of their Jericho home. Like millions of others, they were thrilled. But for the Reillys, there was a special significance.

Eugene, an engineer who died Wednesday at 73 after a heart attack, had helped design the controls and display panel for the lunar module. Anne was also pregnant with their first child.

"Two dreams were coming true at once. Our baby was being born and his own personal baby project was landing on the moon," said Anne Reilly, 70, Eugene's wife of 48 years.

Eugene Reilly was born in Manhattan and grew up in the St. Albans section of Queens, graduating from Delehanty High School in Jamaica. After earning a bachelor's in electrical engineering from Manhattan College in 1962 and working on the Apollo 11 project, he went on to work on the space shuttle and Skylab for Grumman. Later he turned his interest to information security, at Northrop Grumman and Cablevision.

"From a very early age, he was always fixing and exploring things, taking things apart and putting them back together," Anne Reilly said.

He was a man of bear hugs and would give the biggest, most elaborate greeting cards he could find, recalled his daughter, Noreen Harrington, 40, of Southborough, Mass. And he had other unique ways of showing affection: rigging up a security alarm for his daughter's apartment and helping the neighbors fix their computers or Christmas lights.

His son, Gene Reilly, 42, who lives in Hong Kong, said, "When he could use his knowledge to help someone, he would."

SEE PHOTOSNotable deaths: Long Islanders we recently lost

And there was the time he built antennae with flashing lights for his wife's space alien costume. "Now everything blinks, but in 1964, it was quite novel," Anne Reilly said.

Among a number of community activities, Eugene Reilly helped found the St. Paul the Apostle Church in Brookville and held a number of leadership positions in the Knights of Columbus. For his service, the church named him a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

In addition to his wife, daughter and son, Reilly is survived by five grandchildren and two sisters, Mary Kennedy of Bayside and Kathleen White of Commack.

A wake will be held at the Thomas F. Dalton Funeral Home in Hicksville from 2 to 5 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday and Monday. Mass will be celebrated at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Brookville at 11 a.m. Tuesday. Burial will follow at the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury.