Posted by: |
Brother Jeremy Dominic |
On: |
2/28/2004 |
ID: |
160 |
At OLA on 12/1/58? |
Born before or after 12/1/58? |
Where Lived on 12/1/58? |
No |
Before |
Hammond, Indiana |
Coming home from school on December 1, 1958, my mother told me about the fire that was happening at Our Lady of the Angels School and how forty-five students had already lost their lives. Our own Catholic school, St. Stanislaus in East Chicago, Indiana had had a fire on January 18, 1958. It occurred on a Saturday evening, and one can remember the flames from the third floor engulfing each classroom. We followed the newspaper accounts of the Our Lady of the Angels Fire for many days. Just as the OLA students and teachers would later be divided into attending classes in temporary locations, so too were we. Some time after the OLA Fire, a few of my classmates and I were on the third floor of the church building where several of the St. Stanislaus School's grades were assigned during the time of transition. Looking out the windows we thought about the boys and girls at Our Lady of the Angels and how many of them had to jump, and we wondered. I kept the December 2, 1958 newspaper issue as well as the January 19, 1958 issue of another paper which reported the tragedies. As a teaching Brother I have many times reflected on what happened at OLA School. A fitting memorial ought to be reclaiming and then returning the name Our Lady of the Angels School to the building now on the site, perhaps as an alternative independent Catholic school.
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