Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 4, 1994                   TAG: 9405040146
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GSTAAD, SWITZERLAND                                LENGTH: Medium

RICHARD SCARRY, CHILDREN'S AUTHOR, DIES AT 74

Scarry's books have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide and have been translated into as many as 30 languages, said Patricia Murphy Scarry, his wife for more than 40 years.

``The Lowly worm was his very favorite character for all the children,'' she said. Many youngsters have delighted in finding Lowly - the Tyrolean-hatted earthworm - peeking from corners of Scarry's pictures. His books were filled with gentle-looking puppies, kittens, rabbits, pigs and other creatures, sometimes driving bizarre vehicles.

The books, many published by Golden Books and Random House, inspired a cable TV series, and a project is under way to create videos based on the books, his wife said.

Patricia Scarry said her husband died Saturday at a hospital near their home in Gstaad. Funeral plans were private, she said.

Scarry, which rhymes with ``carry,'' was born in Boston in 1919 and studied drawing at the Boston Museum School. He then served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

``He started illustrating the weekend before we were married'' in 1947, she said. After drawing for other authors, he decided he wanted to write as well.

``He considered himself an educator more than anything. He thought any child could learn to read and absorb other things if they were having fun,'' his wife said.

The characters drive vehicles often made in unlikely shapes, such as toothpaste tubes, carrots, eggs and loaves of bread.

``He was a very funny man. Very light-hearted. Wherever he was you could hear his laugh. He made headwaiters growl.'' She said she married Scarry two weeks after they met at a party in New York. Days later he proposed by sending her a telegram saying, only, ``Must move grand piano. Heavy. Come immediately.''

``I knew a proposal when I saw one,'' she said.

She said they and their son, Richard, Jr., moved to Switzerland in 1968 so they could be closer to its ski slopes, but they have returned to Nantucket, Mass., each summer for vacation.

The younger Scarry also writes and illustrates children's books, under the name Huck Scarry, using the nickname his father gave him at birth because he reminded him of Huckleberry Finn.

Besides his wife and son, Scarry is survived by two granddaughters, three brothers and a sister.