Details of Railway Accidents in the Ottawa Area

1939, November 25 - Crossing collision Hawkesbury, CNR., Vankleek sub., two fatalities

Ottawa Citizen 27 November 1939 Car Hits Train, 2 Hawkesbury Residents' Dead Olivier Menard and Wife Killed at Level Crossing Near Their Own Home. Inquest Is Adjourned. HAWKESBURY, Nov. 26 Two prominent Hawkesbury persons were killed here yesterday, when the car in which they were driving collided with a Canadian National Railways train at the level crossing on highway No. 34, just outside the town limits at 12.10 p.m. The dead are: Olivier Menard, 65, prominent in the lumber business here for a great many years, and his wife of less than two years, the former Lena Aube, 58, of Crysler, Ont. Was Almost Home. Mr. Menard, on his customary Saturday morning business trip with his wife, was returning home, when within only a stone's throw of his front door, he failed to notice until too late, the approach of the Glen Robertson Hawkesbury train which passes close by his home and planing mill. The train was in charge of Engineer Parker of Montreal and Conductor S. R. McClelland of Ottawa. Leo Carriere, the fireman, told police. he noticed the car approaching as they neared the crossing, but said it was going quite slowly and that he expected it was about to stop. The train, too. the crew stated, was going fairly slow. The car collided with the cowcatcher of the engine and was tossed into a ditch beside the track about 30 feet away. The front end of the car was completely demolished. Inquest Adjourned. Hearing the crash, people in nearby houses rushed out and after notifying Dr. C. E. Lafrance and Provincial Traffic Officer A. J. Ferguson, who investigated with Provincial Constable R. H. Wannell, extricated the bodies from the car and removed them to the home of Clifford Myre, just across the highway, where Dr. Martin Powers, chief coroner for Prescott and Russell, opened an inquest which was adjourned until Thursday, Nov. 30, at four o'clock in the local town hall.

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Updated 10 July 2021