50 Years of Grief
Fifty years ago today, December 1, 1958, one of the most horrific fires of modern times took place in Chicago, Illinois. The Our Lady of Angels Catholic parochial school was still in session at 2 pm when a fire started in the basement of a 48-yr.-old wing of the school. Heavy smoke traveled up an open stairwell, followed by the heat and fire, into the second floor of the school where it was first detected a half-hour later.
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Fire ran through the 2nd floor trapping hundreds of children in their classrooms and when it was over there were 92 children and 3 nuns dead. The tragedy has haunted the survivors and the families of all the parishoners ever since and is still felt within the fire department for the terrible scene they were faced with. As the bodies were brought out, an entire city was shocked and sickened.
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Within days of the fire, state and local officials throughout the country launched a massive inspection program of all schools and many improvements were made to fire codes relating to fire doors in schools, storage of combustibles and sprinkler systems.
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In room 210, the students of Sister Mary Albia’s fifth grade class pose for their class photo in 1956, two years before the fire. Some of the students in this photo became victims of the fire. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Lego)
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Inside room 211 where 37% of the eighth-grade class was killed. A fireman, Charles Kamin, rescued seven boys and one girl from a window to the right, out of view, before fire burst into the room, killing the remaining children before his eyes. It was a vision that would haunt him the rest of his life.
During this past weekend many of the survivors have been gathering to commemorate the tragedy that left their own lives torn forever. In many cases, almost every childhood friend and classmate perished, scores of children who never had a chance to grow up and experience life itself.
There are several videos online, many on YouTube that you can seek out and view such as this one:
Dave Statter has been taking time this week to gather a good collection of links to articles, documentaries and videos. You can find them HERE. Take some time today to browse through them. But be forewarned, it is an emotional trial to read some of these stories.
I’ll go start the coffee.
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