Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023
Richard John Schneider was born in Credit River on July 12, 1941. He was the third of six children of Julius James Nick Schneider (1909-2001) and Margaret Mary Farrell Schneider (1910-1995).
Richard went to school in Shakopee and graduated in 1959 at the high school which was in what was then the center of Shakopee.
In July 1881, Shakopee consolidated school districts 1 and 2, and built the Union School between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and Lewis and Holmes streets. It was located one block south of old District 1, and west of St. Mary’s Church. It opened on January 10, 1882. It was an elegant building.
They used desks instead of the more typical benches of the time. Union School cost $10,000.
Additions added to the school in 1907 (a full basement for manual training, inside sanitary facilities, two large classrooms and a hall on the first floor, and a large assembly room for the high school on the second floor); in 1929, an addition included razing the oldest part of Union School (added an auditorium, library, science lab, four classrooms, lavatory facilities, shower room, and office space); in 1947, the oldest part of the building before 1929 was torn down, and the 1941 and 1946 additions were incorporated into the new building. In 1959, elementary classrooms to the south end of the present school were added. At that time, Richard was ready to graduate.
(The Shakopee High School on Tenth Avenue was opened in January 1966. Students helped carry some of the books and furnishings the four blocks from Central School (Union School) to the new high school. The high school is now West Middle School after the new high school was built on 17th Avenue in 2007 and expanded in 2016.)
On June 22,1963, Richard married Joan Kollasch at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Shakopee. Claire Joan Kollash Schneider Slater, who was born in 1944, was the daughter of Harold John Kollasch (1913-1997) and Mary Elizabeth Kennedy Kollasch (1915-1993). Her grandparents were Joseph M. Kollasch (1878-1964) and Elizabeth F. Thill (1887-1954); and Lewis A. Kennedy (1886-1959) and Mary Magdaline Menke Kennedy (1892-1987).
In December 1964, Richard and Joan had a son, Douglas Alan Schneider.
Three years later, Richard was a warehouse worker at Broker’s Warehouse in Minneapolis. On Sunday, August 27, 1967, Richard and another worker, Stephen Doran, were on a scaffold. He was moving it when it touched a 3,800-volt power line, according to the Shakopee Valley News, August 31, 1967.
Richard was electrocuted.
People called an ambulance, but a train blocked a crossing, preventing the Minneapolis Fire Department rescue squad from reaching the accident scene. Once they finally arrived, Richard was put in an ambulance and headed to General Hospital in Minneapolis. But on the way, he died.
Richard John Schneider was 26 years old.
The other worker, Stephen Doran of Burnsville, was treated at General Hospital for burns and was released.
Rites happened at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Shakopee on Wednesday, August 30, 1967. Father James Schoenberger officiated the funeral. Pallbearers were Ramon Eng and Gary Pollard of Minneapolis, Ronald Delbow, Robert Delbow, Robert Schmit, and David Kadrlik of Shakopee.
Interment was in the Credit River Cemetery. Credit River Catholic Cemetery, also known as St. Peter’s Cemetery, is located on high ground and overlooks a small lake and Cleary Lake Regional Park, which itself encompasses the land once owned by the Fleming, Cleary, Haugh, O’Brien, and Savage families.
Survivors included his wife, Joan; his son, Donald Alan; his parents, Julius and Margaret Mary Farrell Schneider, who lived at 522 Sixth Street East; two sisters, and three brothers.
Bibliography
Shakopee Valley News, 31 Aug. 1967.