Bishop Emery Killed in Wreck
Diocesan Press Service. March 6, 1964 [XIX-10]
The Rt. Rev. Richard R. Emery, 53, of Fargo, N. D., Bishop of North Dakota, was among five persons killed Feb. 23 when a passenger train rammed the station wagon in which he was riding.
Other crash victims were the Rev. Edwin L. Bigelow, 39, chaplain to Episcopal students at the University of North Dakota in Fargo, his wife Phyllis and their seven-year old daughter, Pamela; and Sharell Simmons, 18, Mandan, N.D., a student at the University. of North Dakota. The Bigelows' five-year-old son, Christopher, was injured.
The crash occurred on the north side of Grand Forks, N.D., at a railroad crossing marked only by a wooden sign. Skid marks from the car were only about a foot long, which indicated that occupants had little warning of the on-rushing train.
The party was returning from Walshville, a small community near Grand Forks, where Bishop Emery had conducted morning services at an Episcopal mission. At the time of the collision, the group was on its way to another service in Grand Forks.
Bishop Emery was President of the Sixth Province. Prior to his election to the episcopate in 1951, Bishop Emery had served as minister-in-charge of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Windom, Minn., and St. John's Church, Worthington, 1937-42; rector of the Church of Christ, Albert Lea, Minn., 1942-48; and rector of St. Paul's Parish in Minneapolis, 1948-51.
Bishop Emery is survived by his widow and two children, all of Fargo, N. D.