I am 53 years old and grew up in Chicago near the intersection of Fullerton and Cicero. On Dec. 1, 1958, I was a 4th grader (age 9) at St. Genevieve School. I live in Wisconsin now, and today (Dec. 22, 2003)I bought a Chicago Tribune to read about the Bears' victory over the Washington Redskins. In the Metro section, I read the obituary about Father Joseph Ognibene, and a flood of memories returned to me about the tragic OLA fire. I immediately conducted some Internet searches, and I was amazed and transfixed by this website. About 4:00 pm on Dec. 1, 1958, I remember being on a CTA trolley bus (Fullerton Ave.) with my mother. We were on our way to a shopping district (Belmont and Central), probably to do some Christmas shopping. The news of the fire was spreading, and I can vividly remember my mom and a number of other women on the bus talking about the breaking news. Returning to St. Genevieve the next day, all the nuns (Sisters of Providence) spoke about the fire. Fire drills became very numerous and very serious, and I recall well standing on the sidewalk during icy Chicago winters, "praying" for the all-clear bell that would allow us to return to the warmth of the building. St. Gen's was a school not unlike OLA, with three classrooms of 50+ kids for each grade. Even in 4th grade, we knew that the OLA tragedy could have happened at St. Gen's, and coupled with the "bomb" drills (under the desk with our heads between our kness) of the Cold War era, the world seemed like a scarier place. A few years later (1964), I started high school at St. Pat's on the northwest side, and one of my homeroom classmates was an OLA survivor. (For the purposes of privacy, I am not mentioning his name.) I remember questioning him closely about the events of Dec. 1, 1958. Amazingly, in the mid-1980s while coaching youth hockey in the northern suburbs of Milwaukee, I met a parent of one of my players who was also an OLA survivor. (Again, I will keep his name private.) He was in 8th grade at the time of the fire, and while scanning the list of survivors on this website, I was in awe to see his name. Believe it or not, he was one of the 8th grade boys who was helping out with the clothing drive on the OLA church on that fateful day. As I view the pictures of the children from the newspaper headlines that awful week, I sit here in my office today and offer a prayer to those whose lives were ended much too soon, as well as for all of the loved ones that they left behind. God bless you all, and know that you do not grieve alone.
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