Personal experiences with Our Lady of the Angels School Fire on December 1, 1958

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Personal Experiences with Our Lady of the Angels School Fire

If you have a personal experience, recollection or opinion about the December 1, 1958 Our Lady of the Angels school fire, whether you were present at the fire or not, you can relate it here. Any story or information is welcome as long as it relates to Our Lady of the Angels school fire.

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Posted by:

Janice Sansone=Bahde

On:

12/11/2006

ID:

302

At OLA on 12/1/58?	Born before or after 12/1/58?	Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No	Before	Chicago

I was only 5 years old but I have very vivid memories of my mother crying and sobbing at the kitchen table reading the newspaper about the fire. I asked why she was crying and she said that we used to live in that neighborhood and if we had not moved my older brother, my sister and I would have been going to that school and would have been in the fire. My brother would have been in 4th grade and she just kept crying because one of the boys,(Joseph Modica), that died was one of my brother's friends. He got out safely and then went back in for his sister and did not make it out again. Joseph was their only son and he died.
When I started first grade at All Saints Parish I remember feeling so frightened that the school would start on fire. I used to think how I would escape if there was a fire. Then when I was ten years old I was hospitalized for 3 weeks at St Anthony Hosp. I was very frightened that the hospital would start on fire and I would be trapped. I remembered the images of kids jumping out of windows and the pictures in the papers and on the news and I was so affected by all of them. I can't imagine what it must have been like for those that survived the fire and when I think of all of those that died and those that survived I pray for all of you. God Bless you with peace and calm and may His love surround you always.

Posted by:

On:

12/10/2006

ID:

301

At OLA on 12/1/58?	Born before or after 12/1/58?	Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No	Before

We moved to the City the following year, to the area immediately north of OLA. When we arrived I was 7, and enrolled in St. Priscilla, about 3 miles northwest of OLA on Addison Street. I remember my mother being adamant about not wanting us to go to school at OLA.
I remember several times seeing a boy a bit older than me from OLA with his mom, out in public, when our Mom would take us with her shopping to Five Points and perhaps the shops on Irving Park Road around Saint Pius Church. (There was a great 5 and dime there across from that Church.) Once I saw him at Marshall Fields downtown at Christmas.
He was memorable because he had to wear a large white gauze veil covering on the entire left side of his face. Probably he was scarred or (hopefully) healing. I recall staring at him on one occasion and my Mom roughly jerking me away when she caught me. I remember his looking directly at me. I felt so sorry for him, appearing in public that way. It was sad, but my Mom would never tell us what had happened to him other than the fact that he had survived the fire at Our Lady of the Angels. I had a vague sense of his being somehow tied to the word angels....as I was very young and we were just learning about them at St. Priscilla.
Periodically over the years, there was infrequently just the mention of Our Lady of the Angels, and though their eyes would widen, the adults would refuse to talk about it in front of us. We never went south to that area for any reason whatsoever. As though it was somehow still shadowed by the event.
We most certainly prayed for the souls of the children who passed away there while we attended St. Priscilla.
We are Irish American and I believe that given the times and our ethnicity, it was seen as bad luck to even discuss tragedy (like the famine which brought our people here). Thus we never heard about our ancestors or what happened to them prior to inculturation in America. I think alot of the families of kids at OLA were also from different European ethnic backgrounds which had similar traditions regarding tragedy and loss.
We had fire drills very frequently at St. Priscilla, as it was a very similar set up built approximately the same period. Everything was made of wood - structure, floors, doors, trim,cloak room, desks, windows - everything, - floors waxed constantly to a high (flammable)gloss
It seemed like in ther regimented way, the Sisters of St. Francis were constantly marching us around - from required Mass at Church in the morning, out to the playground at noon, back in from playground, and leaving the school at night. I still remember the song that the principal played on the intercom every night to get us marching out.
No doubt some if not all this attention to precision movement of the kids was in respone to the OLA tragedy.

Posted by:

Arelis

On:

12/7/2006

ID:

300

At OLA on 12/1/58?	Born before or after 12/1/58?	Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No	After	n/a

I wasnt alive at the time of the fire, but I first knew about it 3 years ago.My stepfather and I where watching a show called Chicago stories on PBS.When I read the book I knew alot more of the fire.It was sad to hear to hear children and nuns dead.I usually pass by there sometimes, because I lived around that area.

Posted by:

C. M.

On:

12/3/2006

ID:

299

At OLA on 12/1/58?	Born before or after 12/1/58?	Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No	Before	715 S Pulaski

I was 18, traveling northbound on the bus to Madison and Crawford (Pulaski). I don't recall how we got the news on the bus, but several ladies started screaming and crying that their children were at that school. There was a lot of comotion on the bus,I had to get off and I often till this day wonder about those women and if their kids got out safely. My father did'nt want us to go near the scene of the fire, he told us that the neighborhood was in pain and that they did'nt need us there to gawk. A black cloud hung over them.

I myself attended Presentation Catholic School Springfield and Polk. We also had a school fire around 1951 or 52. Something should of been learned from our school fire. Every time I hear or think of OLA, I think back to our school fire.

Presentation had 2 school buildings. A "old" school(built 1909), and held grades K to 4, and a "new" school(built maybe in the 40's)with grades 5 to 8. The fire was in the new school. Like OLA it too started in the basement near the stairwell, the halls filled up quickly with smoke. We did'nt know there was a fire until we heard the fire engines coming, some of the kids near the windows were looking out to see if a house nearby had a fire. Then they yelled "the school's on fire", the nun did'nt believe them and walked over to the window to see for herself, at the same time all hell broke loose and some kids were going to jump from the 2 floor windows, glass was breaking, smoke was coming into the room. I was on the second floor on the east side of the school, 5th grade and our room was on the corner of the building, so we had windows to the east and on the north. The north windows led to an alley. When I looked out the window all I saw was the fire trucks, and people all over the streets, some were yelling "jump". I seen the first floor kids running from the school. I remember someone saying we had to jump and to go out the back windows, as I neared the windows a fireman appeared in our room and led us all to safety. To this day I don't know how we were able to get out, I know we had to crawl to a stairway and then run as fast as we could. No casualities. Just chaos afterward. There were no classrooms on the west side of the building, on the first floor was the gymnasium which had high ceilings to the second floor. It was the gym that burned. That whole side of the building was destroyed. We were lucky.

How did the fire start, believe it or not, it was suspected that a boy in our school started it.

Posted by:

Paul Rosen

On:

12/1/2006

ID:

298

At OLA on 12/1/58?	Born before or after 12/1/58?	Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No	Before	North Side of Chicago

I had turned four years old just the previous month. The Our Lady of the Angels School Fire was the very first news story that I have any recollection of. To this day I am haunted by the pictures of firefighters carrying dead and dying children down their ladders, thick smoke billowing out of the burning school building, and the cries and sobs of helpless parents. On this day, the 48th anniversary of the fire, I pause to remember the innocent victims and their families.

Posted by:

Frances Carney

On:

11/10/2006

ID:

297

At OLA on 12/1/58?	Born before or after 12/1/58?	Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No	Before	Sacramento, California

In December of 1958 I was in the 5th grade, attending school at the Holy Angels Catholic School, in Sacramento, California. The shock of that OLA fire traveled all the way to the West Coast and devastated us! The nuns at our school were so overwhelmed in grief over everyone who lost their lives, especially the children, that they could not stop showing us pictures and talking about it. Our school was especially shook up by it because we had a similar name, and our school was built just like OLA. It became known on the West Coast as the "Chicago School Fire". That fire certainly made a lasting impression on me as a youngster, and over the years I vowed to do some research and look up the story again so I could remember the details. Thanks to Google, I have found your website. Naturally, I am thankful for your website. We will all remember.

Posted by:

elkayo

On:

11/4/2006

ID:

296

At OLA on 12/1/58?	Born before or after 12/1/58?	Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No	Before	chicago's south side, 27th & komensky ave

My mother worked as a nurse at Mother Cabrini hospital on the day
of the fire. She cared for some of the children as they were brought
in, as she said. She mentioned, in particular, one boy, whose eye-
glasses were melted onto his face.
In addition, the cousin of my first wife is Michelle McBride, who
survived the fire and later wrote an absorbing book about her ex-
periences.

Posted by:

Andrew BROWN

On:

10/17/2006

ID:

295

At OLA on 12/1/58?	Born before or after 12/1/58?	Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No	Before	Iowa

Sister Davidis DEVINE was the Nun in charge of Room 209 on Dec. 1, 1958 and her quick thinking helped save most of her eighth grade students.

She was to live over fifty more years and died 14OCT2006 in Dubuque\IA at the Mother House of her order - She was 100 years old.

Posted by:

Robert

On:

10/16/2006

ID:

294

At OLA on 12/1/58?	Born before or after 12/1/58?	Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No	Before	Buffalo, New York

One of the earliest memories I can recall as a child, was of this fire. I can vaguely remember seeing it on the news and my parents talking about it at the time. It shocked me, and left an impression on me that I would never forget. I was born in 1952, and was in first grade at the time of the fire. I was six.

Several years earlier, another tragic school fire occurred within a mile of where we lived in the town of Cheektowaga, a suburb of Buffalo, New York. That fire killed 15 elementary school students in a newly built wooden annex at Cleveland Hill Schools. Apparently, an influx of many new students resulted in the building of the annex, which held 8 classrooms. Only one class was in session at the time of the fire, or it may have been even worse. It was a single story structure, but fire spread quickly through the hallway and students couldn't get the exterior paned windows to open. It occurred on Mar 31, 1954. I was too young to remember much about that fire, but my parents told me about it some time later, and we drove by where the annex once stood.

Anyway, for some reason, I decided to research the Buffalo fire the other day, and came across this site about the OLA fire. I ended up getting the book on the OLA fire and reading it, as well as most of the information on this site.

Like for many people I'm sure, these tragic fires and other events made up a small part of what I can recall about growing up as a child. I'd like to thank the webmaster for creating this site in memory of the children who lost their lives in the OLA fire; going through the memorial pages and seeing the faces of those children brought tears to my eyes even after so many years.

If anyone reading this can recall anything about the Buffalo fire, I'd be interested in hearing from you. Thanks, Robert.

Posted by:

Schmidt

On:

10/15/2006

ID:

293

At OLA on 12/1/58?	Born before or after 12/1/58?	Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No	After	n/a

I am a teacher in Chicago Public Schools. I was hired in late August. I began to research the OLA fire because we had a fire drill at our school in the middle of September. I was disturbed by the reaction to the fire drill by the children. the behavior and attitudes were awful. One of my students said "why should we be quiet, it's only a drill and there is no real fire." They ran down the stairs like it was a field day, my class was not the only class that acted like this. It was very disturbing. I remembered my dad telling me about the OLA fire. He went to OLA for a couple of years and then moved about a year before the fire. I think of what could have been if his family did not move. He would have been in the upper grades at the time of the fire. When I got my class back into the classroom, I told them about the fire and how awful it was. I told them to ask their parents about it. I explained to them how important it is for them to listen, walk quietly and follow directions during a fire drill or any drill for that matter. I am glad I found the site and can read them the entire account of the fire so that maybe they can understand how important it is. We are in an old building and my classroom walls are made out of wood. I am glad that I am on the first floor. I pray for all the victims and survivors of the fire.

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