91st Chicago Victim Of School Fire Dies |
CHICAGO, Dec. 6 - (AP) - Puzzled investigators Saturday began anew the somber task of finding the cause of Monday's fire at Our Lady of the Angels School, which has claimed the lives of 88 pupils and three nuns. |
As mass funeral rites for 27 of the young victims in the severe surroundings of a National Guard armory ended Friday, Fire Commissioner Robert J. Quinn pledged. |
“We are going over everything we know and we will cover the building again from basement to roof.” |
Mourners who returned from four chill, windswept cemeteries sorrowed at the news of the death of Victor Jacobellis, 9, a victim of extensive burns. |
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His death boosted the toll to 91 victims in the third worst school fire in the nation's history. |
Roman Catholic Bishop Raymond Hillinger of Chicago sought to supply his church's answer to the question on the lips of many Christians, Roman Catholic and non-Catholic alike: how could heaven permit such a tragedy. |
In his funeral sermon, while looking over the draped coffins, Bishop Hillinger recalled that Jesus himself cried out. |
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. |
“God does not allow disasters to take place without reason,” he said. “He will draw untold good from the purgatory of this week. |
“We have seen faith that must move mountains of doubt, perhaps even the doubt in the minds of Communists and unbelievers. We have seen hope in the tear stained faces of the bereaved, and they knelt in prayer to, and in communion with him who said, 'I am the resurrection and the life.'”. |
Archbishop Albert Gregory Meyer, who assumed his post only 16 days before disaster struck his flock of nearly two million Catholics in the Chicago area, sang the mass before 7.000 mourners in the northwest side armory. Other services were constructed throughout the city. |
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More than 30 victims were buried side by side in the Holy Innocents section of the Queen of Heaven cemetery. Other youngsters were laid to rest in family plots. Services for more than a score of other victims were to be held Saturday. |
The death Friday night of the Jacobellis boy left 10 young victims of the fire still in critical condition in hospitals. Fifty-six others remain in area hospitals. |