I was a second grader at St. Edward's School on the northwest side at the time of the fire. I heard about it that night at home, but with little information except that there had been a fire at Our Lady of Angels and that there were children killed. The next day, though, our second grade teacher, Sr. Lillian, told us a great deal more. As the days passed, she reverted to the topic over and over. She relayed news stories as well as stories passed through Chicago's convents. One of the things that she told us was that our school was built on the same plan as Our Lady of Angels. Looking at the pictures on this site, I can see that isn't accurate, but I had believed it until now. It seems like an odd thing for her to have insisted on. While my parents were unperturbed by the fire and didn't discuss it, the nuns were consumed with it. They took their responsibilities for us very seriously. The nuns at St. Edwards had always been safety conscious, but they became absolute fanatics about fire drills. Up until the fire, we had worn our winter coats for the occasional cold weather drills, but afterward we were reminded constantly to evacuate without picking up coats or books. The drills were timed and if we were too slow, Sr. Isabelle, the principal, would schedule another drill almost immediately. Their goal was to evacuate the entire school, 1248 students, in five minutes. We managed that feat on a pretty regular basis. Sr. Lillian was obsessed with the classrooms that were trapped. She had various pieces of advice (stay calm; jump even if you're scared; roll down the stairs; feel the door before you try to open it, etc.) but the thing she was most constant about was the necessity of being able to say a good Act of Contrition automatically. The remainder of my time in grade school was normal, but with an almost daily emphasis on fire safety. I remember years later, when I was in 7th grade, we were waiting for one of the parish priests to come to the classroom and hand out our report cards. Our teacher, Sr. St. Frances Cabrini, a strict disciplinarian of great good humor, glanced at the transom, turned white and ran for the door. She paused (probably feeling the door, I suppose) threw it open and looked out into the hall. We heard her say something, then she leaned back into the room, closed the door and practically collapsed against the wall. After a minute she started laughing and told us that she had seen smoke curling up over the transom and had run to the door expecting a fire. Turns out the young priest was standing outside of our room having a cigarette break. Funny story, even at the time, but the look on her face when she ran to the door is a vivid memory. I remember there were rumors at the time that a boy who was truant that day had been hanging around the school, smoking, and had tossed the lit cigarette in through a basement window onto a pile of newspapers. I have no idea where the rumor started, but it was given great currency at the time. One of the details offered in the rumor was that the boy's name would never be published because he hadn't intended to cause the tragedy and that he would be unable to deal with public sentiment if his role were known. The thing that I carried away from the fire at Our Lady of Angels was a sense of responsibility to ensure safety for children. One of the first things I did when moving was to lay out routes out of the house for my children and make them practice them. And always, a place to meet outside of the house and wait. I don't know if I can convey the sense of grief that still haunts me over the fire. I have never been able to mention it or read about it without crying. Fifty years. Hard to believe.
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