| Erect Fireproof School Building |
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| By WILLIAM J. CONWAY |
| CHICAGO (AP)—“If there ever was a fireproof building, this is it.” |
| A workman made that comment to a reporter as they stood near a construction site at the north-east corner of Avers Avenue and Iowa street. |
| They looked at a sturdy steel and concrete skeleton that is rising from the ashes and charred bricks of the Our Lady of the Angels School. |
| The only wood in the new million-dollar, three-story building will be in the doors. |
| A new fire alarm box already stands like a sentry on the sidewalk on the Iowa Street side. It symbolizes the determination that there shall be no repetition of the blaze that swept up an open stairwell of the old school Dec. 1, 1958. |
| That fire cost the lives of 92 children and 3 nuns. |
| Our Lady of the Angels pupils attend classes elsewhere while workmen labor on the new structure. |
| A newsman who revisited the scene recalled the eerie silence that shrouded the area that short, dark, cold day almost a year ago. |
| Spectators had gathered behind fire lines to stare at the ruined building. Parishioners trickled into the nearby church to offer silent prayers. |
| That was a silence of mass shock. It has been replaced by a mum reluctance to talk about the tragedy. |
| “I'd rather not talk about it.” Mrs. Joseph Modica told a reporter who called at her home. |
| Her son, Joseph Jr., 9. had started work last fall on a Christmas gift for her. He took letters of the alphabet that were made of cereal and glued them on sticks to spell out a vow: “I, Joseph, promise to do my best to do my duty to God end to my country, to be square and to - -” |
| He never finished his project. He died in the fire. |
| At another neat brick home, Mrs. Joseph Makowski let the reporter in through an entry hall where a statue of the mother of Christ was enshrined on a wall. She lost a son, Raymond, in the fire. |
| She didn't want to talk, either. But she did mention one detail of her sorrow. |
| “He was going to be 13 that Christmas Eve,” she said. |
| In these homes and elsewhere of bitterness in the parish. The rectory denied rumors of physical or menial breakdowns among nuns. |
| The pastor, Msgr. Joseph F. Cussen, suffered a stroke last May. After a long stay in a hospital he has returned to his post as head of one of Chicago's largest parishes. |
| He arranged an anniversary Mass for the fire victims at 6 p.m. Tuesday. |
| The fire left a legacy of litigation as well as sorrow. Suits seeking 52. 305, 000 in damages have been filed against the Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago, who controls the school property, and the city of Chicago. They were filed in behalf of the families of 16 of the pupils who died and six of the 80 children who were injured. |
