Avis de décès de Pierre Le-Bris

Pierre Le Bris, a travel industry executive who was a member of the Bay Area's lively French immigrant community for more than half a century and a World War II combat veteran of the Free French Navy, died of a stroke Friday while traveling through Wyoming. Mr. Le Bris, who was 85, was stricken while en route from his home in Walnut Creek to a summer residence in Calumet, Mich. He died at a hospital in Cheyenne, Wyo. Mr. Le Bris spent more than 40 years in the world of travel and is perhaps best remembered as one of the top French railroad officials who, in 1959, invented Eurailpass. Originally issued for one month of unlimited travel on European trains, the pass became wildly successful. It allowed North American tourists in Europe to travel through 13 different countries on one pass that they bought before going overseas. Eurailpass was "conceived for the North American market to encourage travel to Europe," according to Chris Lazarus, a spokeswoman for Rail Europe, the American distributor of Eurailpass, and about 5,000 sold the first year. More than 11 million passes have been sold since then, and they are now available for trains going into 17 countries. "Pierre was one of the key people instrumental in creating Eurailpass, and it's been a very successful product," said Andrew Lazarus, the father of Chris and a retired public relations executive whose public relations firm represented the French railroads. He worked with Mr. Le Bris in New York in the 1950s. "It was the granddaddy of travel passes." Mr. Le Bris was born in Nice, France, in June 1920 and spent much of his youth in China, where his father ran an import firm, selling refrigerators and other American products. After the American stock market crash of 1929, the Le Bris family returned to France, settling in the Rhone Valley. Mr. Le Bris was educated in local French schools and enrolled at the French Naval School near Brest in 1938. After World War II started in 1939, Mr. Le Bris served in a succession of posts aboard a submarine and a destroyer. After the fall of France, in June 1940, Mr. Le Bris served on ships that joined the Free French Forces, fighting with the Allies. While on convoy duty in the North Atlantic, Mr. Le Bris traveled to New York, where he met Jacqueline Duval in 1943. After the war, he came to New York and was admitted to the United States under what was called the War Brides Act. He married Ms. Duval in October 1945. In 1951, Mr. Le Bris joined the New York office of SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer), the big French railroad, and fell in love with the travel industry. Two years later, SNCF sent him to San Francisco as its sales manager. In fact, the Bay Area was one of the better places to be if you came from France. The French have been here since the middle of the 19th century, when 10,000 citizens arrived to try their luck during the Gold Rush of 1849. Many of those who didn't hit it big in the mother lode came to San Francisco and opened hotels and restaurants. A few years later, the French had established themselves in the Bay Area to the extent that in November 1855, shortly after French and British troops beat the Russians in the Crimean War, there was a big banquet in the middle of the city's South Park, a bastion of the French in San Francisco, to celebrate the victory, according to Father Etienne Siffert, former pastor of Notre Dame des Victoires, the French church on Bush Street. A century later, when Mr. Le Bris arrived, the French community had spawned more restaurants and hotels, along with 52 organizations and more than 100 French laundries. Most of the laundries are now gone. South Park, with its French cafe the Butler and the Chef Bistro, still feels distinctly like a small town in central France. Although there is no official census, an estimated 45,000 to 90,000 French immigrants live in the Bay Area. For his part, Mr. Le Bris served as president of the Union des Français a l'Etranger (the Association of French Citizens Abroad) in San Francisco and was a member of the Anciens Combattant, a French veterans group. Mr. Le Bris left SNCF in 1972 and joined Air France as an executive. He and his wife divorced in 1978, and he married Judith McKenzie in 1984. Mr. Le Bris is survived by his wife, Judith, of Walnut Creek; brother, Jacques Le Bris of Paris; sisters, Janick Recoing of Croze Hermitage, France, and Helene Maillard-Verger and Maryse Recoing, both of Paris; son, Christian Le Bris of New Canaan, Conn.; daughters, Elisabeth Le Bris and Marie Pierre Le Bris, both of Wilmette, Ill.; and three grandchildren. A memorial service is scheduled for Sept. 3 at University Church, Fordham University, the Bronx, N.Y. The family suggests contributions to United Medical Center Hospice, 214 East 23rd St., Cheyenne, WY 82001.