LONGTIME PIPE ORGANIST PUMPS OUT THE TUNES
If you’re looking for a musical treat, not a trick, on Halloween, look no further than the Emmons house on Autumnwood Drive.
Dick Emmons, an 86-year-old retired music teacher, has a huge churchstyle pipe organ installed in his home. Every year on Halloween, he dresses up in all black clothes and a cape and plays organ music from his music room, which was converted from a garage.
Emmons bought the pipe organ from a Catholic church in Martinez in 1987. The church staff had decided to get rid of it.
Emmons’s organ console and pipes are vintage, dating back to the year 1939. He and his wife, Leona Emmons, have lived in their house since 1997. They both graduated from Chico State. Dick Emmons majored in music education. He became a music teacher and taught elementary, junior high and high school in Sacramento and the Bay Area. One of his Chico State music professors was none other than Bob Laxson, for which Laxson Auditorium is named.
“You know you’re getting old when buildings are named after people who taught you in college,” Dick Emmons said.
Dick Emmons was a minister of music at First Baptist Church in Richmond. He began playing piano in the fifth grade and played the tuba as a student at Chico State. He performed in his high school band and in the Chico State orchestra.
Emmons enjoys listening to classical music as a hobby. Some of his favorite songs to play are “The Addams Family Theme” as well as songs from Phantom of the Opera and Disney songs such as “It’s A Small World.” He’s been playing for Halloween night for visitors for 24 years. He and Leona Emmons set up chairs in their music room and Halloween visitors drift in, sit down and listen. The couple receives as many as 100 trick or treaters on Halloween night.
“I’ll turn around from playing and there will be a half circle of people listening,” Dick Emmons said.
The Emmons have three sons, one whom lives in Chico, one in Elk Grove and one in Colorado. Their children are also musically inclined. Their son in Colorado is a band director. Another son and granddaughter play at church.
Both Dick and Leona Emmons have sung in church choirs and also in barbershop choirs.
Emmons practices the organ daily, usually for two hours in the morning. He plays at Evangelical Free Church in Chico, where he shares organ duties.
When he and Leona Emmons were searching for a house, one of their requirements was that they needed a place to install the pipe organ.
Dick Emmons loves playing the organ.
“I feel satisfied and accomplished,” Dick Emmons said about his pipe organ playing.
The Emmons’ house is located at 1090 Autumnwood Drive in Chico.