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Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) School Fire, 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: Connie Catalano On: 4/20/2003 ID: 80
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before 956 N. Harding
First of all I think it is incredible after all these years that so many people are saying the same words I have been saying for years.

I was 8 years old the day of the fire and attended Orr Elementary School. However, my 2 best friends Kathleen Carr and Daine Karwacki went to OLA. Because I wanted to be with them, my parents were working on getting the money to send me to OLA and I was due to attend in 1959. The day of the fire I had a stomach ache and asked my Mother to let me stay home. Usually she would say no and send me off to school but that day she let me stay home. I sat at the window and watched all the children on our block...seems like hundreds... go off to school, including Kathleen and Diane. Sometime after lunch a family friend Rita Virgilio called our house to make sure we were OK because she saw black smoke coming from our area. She was at Garfield Park walking her babies around. My Mom thought she was kidding because we had a fire in our home once and the fireman had to take us out of the burning house.

My Mom decided we should take a walk and find out what was on fire, so we did. We followed the smoke and came upon OLA School, which was our parish and where we attended cathecism. We passed kids on the way whose clothes were torn and black and some were burnt. Walking home! We arrived at the schoold, I was holding my Mother's hand and we just stood there in horror, shocked and helpless. I began to cry for a family friend Gary and my best friend Kathleen and Diane. The whole day was total chaos and disbelief. I could not eat because I was worried about all the children but mostly wanted to know where about Gary, Kathleen and Diane. I remember my father crying at the table worried for all the families.

Gary arrived home, smoke stained and it took 3 days to find the bodies of Kathleen and Diane both burnt beyond recognition. I prayed everynight and thought for sure they were at someone's house.

I remember the moment a neighbor came to our front door with the news. My mother walked down our long hallway and I slipped out the upstairs hallway door to listen. My mother cried and then came up and did not say a word. When I asked she said they were just dropping something off. I was so frustrated that she would not tell me I remember yelling at the dinner table, "I know that Kathleen and Diane are in heaven, why won't you tell me!" I went to my room and cried. And in all honesty to this day, deep inside, I never have stopped crying about this whole tragedy. I could go on and on about each day that we learned of another child was found dead.

Many people on this message board have said, we just were not allowed to talk about it. It's true and I eventually went to counseling as an adult and those were the words I used! "They never let us talk about it!" To release my expereince, I have written articles about this fire and have used it for illustrations in public speaking.

I think it was too horrible to talk about for the surviving parents and they were on every block, everywhere we went. So if we were quiet, it seemed respectful to them.

One incident I will never forget was "after the fire". I walked across the street to my friend Kathleen's house. She was a red headed little cutie and had a play house in the backyard. Diane and I used to go there all the time. It is a great memory. But on this day, I went after the fire and knocked on the door to tell her Mom I missed Kathleen. Her Mother was so taken back she slammed the door in my face and soon after that they moved. I felt so bad and my mother scolded me for going there. I believe Kathleen was an only child. I sure would like to find her parents and just tell them how much I cared. Diane lived next door to Kathleen and her family build a fence that was so high no one could see over it. I saw her uncle on occasion but never her mother.

Interestedly, enough after that, I had no playmates on my block until I was about 12 years old. I played with my 3 brothers in the yard.

There is so much to tell about this event. Recently I connected with a man Larry Giantomas, who I have never met, due to a common bond of this fire. I want to thank the person who came up with this idea of a website. It is a blessing.

Life does go on, I had 2 children of my own and told them about the fire after they were adults. It took me that look to talk about it openly. I have 2 almost 3 grandchildren and I am very protective of their whereabouts. I think this is getting long but I am excited about being a part of this and hope to reconnect with some people from the old neighborhood.


Posted by: Larry J. Giantomas On: 4/19/2003 ID: 79
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before I was attending college in Milwaukee WI.
I was a freshman at Marquette University in Milwaukee WI. at the time of this disastrous fire.. I read about the fire and saw it on the news and I was deeply moved and stunned.. Some how I got hold of the name of a student who was badly burned and in St. Anne's Hospital.. I think it was from the Chicago newspaper.. I sent a card to Billy Edington at the hospital. I later got a kind thank you from his mother so I kept sending cards and later I began sending Billy gifts from Marquette..tee shirts, and sweat shirts and banners.. I even got the basketball team to sign a team picture for Billy.. I was called the day he died and given the bad news.. I lost all touch with the Edingtons and soon the fire became but a memory.

A year or so ago I saw an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that a survivor of that fire was searching for the fireman who had saved his life.. I contacted this person...Larry Sorce who is now a business man in our area and we met.. He later drove me to Chicago to the old neighborhood and school and we visited the cemetery where Billy is buried.. I decorated his grave...I have been back to visit Billy's grave several times.. and decorate it.. Through Larry's help I contacted Billy's father and he told me all about the fire and how Billy had suffered and how he died nearly one year after the fire.. I have made arrangements with St. Joseph Cemetery to have Billy's grave decorated on his birthday and Christmas.. I never got the opportunity and privilege to meet Billy but to me he was my kid brother and I feel I have to respect his memory.. It is a miracle that I found his grave almost 40 years after the fire.


Posted by: pmeja On: 4/18/2003 ID: 78
Enrolled on 12/1/58? Present on 12/1/58? Injured? Age Grade Classroom Teacher
Yes No No 5 K Don't know Don't remember
This is a note for Phyllis Filipponio. I knew I remembered your little sister, and couldn't remember her first name. Was Annette in kindergarten or younger? I seem to remember being in class either with me or with my brother John, who was two years behind me but only one year younger.


Posted by: Phyllis Filipponio On: 3/29/2003 ID: 77
Enrolled on 12/1/58? Present on 12/1/58? Injured? Age Grade Classroom Teacher
Yes Yes No 12 7 208 ? ?
For now I would like to correct some wrong information. My sister Lucille was not the last child identified. She was never found or identified. The spelling of her name is Lucille. Thank you. I am her older sister and was in the seventh grade. I will write more later.


Posted by: Lovebug31645@aol.com On: 3/26/2003 ID: 76
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before Chicago
I emailed you in the last month. I was marrieg to A Lego.I was at ST Michels, St Edwards at the time, in 8th grade. We heard bout the school, over the loud speaker we were told to go back to Church to pray for the childern. Little did I know I would be married to a victim in the school.

He told me bout it but he did not want to talk bout it. Cause no one did after it happened. I am glad he talked, remembered what he did. He would go into a depression. I met his friend Gary, his sister, she was burned, has night mares still to this day. I feel bad for them, and others. I went to a reunion by Linda for him, with a pic when he was 12.

I am so happy for him to talk get it out, maybe he will be okay at Thanks Giving when it started.

I am thankful for that, I hope he can rest now. Thank you for listening to me.

God Bless


Posted by: OC Doc On: 3/19/2003 ID: 75
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before San Diego, CA
I'm a physician in Southern California and have no personal connection to Chicago or OLA parish. However, in an odd way, I've known about the tragedy nearly my entire life.

I was only two years old at the time of the fire, and began public school Kindergarten in San Diego in 1961. I attended an elementary school, the original wing of which was founded in 1915. In the late 1930s, as the surrounding area switched from rural/farm to residential, a U-shaped addition was added to make the school into a rectangle, with a courtyard in the middle. The original 1915 wing has since been torn down, in accordance with state law (did not meet earthquake safety codes laid down in 1935), but the rest of the school, built in 1938, still stands. The school was almost all single story, except for one wing where the grade level was higher on one side than the other (due to San Diego's steep hills). One side of this wing was one-story, while on the other side it was two stories (and there were first-floor classrooms below on one side). All stairs were OUTSIDE, partly because of San Diego's mild climate and partly because they didn't want any interior stairwells.

The Kindergarten was housed in two conjoined classrooms with their own large fenced-in playground. The school was built between two hills, so that the street in front of the Kindergarten complex sloped steeply down to meet in a low point about 15 feet below the level of the playground. As a result, there was a 15 foot retaining wall topped by a high fence to keep the kids safe. The only exit was a gate on one end that led out to the street (where the street was level with the playground). I remember our Kindergarten teacher (who was, if I may say, a real witch!) explaining that our school in San Diego was one of the first to be built with fire alarms (that rang in the fire department) and with sprinklers. The walls were concrete, the floors composite, and there was little wood used in construction. [So apparently by the late 1930s, they knew how to build a relatively fire-proof school]

The first time we ever practiced a fire drill, she explained that this was no laughing matter, because nearly 100 children in a Catholic school in Chicago had died only a few years back. We also had a fireman come to the class to talk about fire safety. He brought a poster showing a Chicago fireman carrying the lifeless body of a boy [whom I now know was John Jajkowski] as an example of how important fire safety was. Also, there was a girl in our class named Antoinette whose family had moved to San Diego from Chicago the previous year, and she seemed to know a little about the OLA fire as well (from her older siblings), though I don't think they lived in the OLA parish area.

No one explained to us that the Chicago school was unsafe, and the implication was that they had not adequately rehearsed fire drills at the school [after reading this site and the book "To Sleep With The Angels", I know that this is not true, and the 1915 wing of my school, where I attended 5th and 6th grades, was just as dangerous, though only one story high]. I used to have nightmares about that poster. We lived in a two-story home and my parents bought a chain ladder for each bedroom, and we were taught how to use them in case of fire.

During my Kindergarten year, several modifications were made to the rooms, which must have been a reaction to the OLA fire. The rooms opened to a hallway on one side (rear) and to the exterior in the front (again, because of our mild climate) on the other side. Both doors were refitted with push bars instead of knobs, as was a third door leading to a storage room for play equipment; the storage room's door to the outside was also retrofitted. In addition, a second gate was cut on the other side of the playground fence leading to one of two playing fields for the older kids. Finally, a third gate was cut at the highest point of the retaining wall, a steel ladder was attached to the retaining wall, and each of the Kindergarten teachers had a key to the padlock for this gate. Due to liability issues, we never practiced descending the ladder, but we did practice lining up and walking to the gate and pretending to take our turns going down the ladder. We rehearsed different scenarios, such as a fire in the storage room, a fire in the front of the room (go out via the rear door to the hallway while led to an exit door), or fire in the hallway (go out via the front exterior door). I never understood at the time why fire safety was stressed to this degree, but now I know why: the OLA fire catalyzed a nationwide push toward better school safety.

Fast forwarding to the present, I have a patient (whom we'll call Gena--last name left out for privacy) who is a Chicago native and who moved to California in the 1960s. Recently, during an office visit, we discussed the recent (a day or two before the visit) tragic nightclub fire in Rhode Island. She knew I'd attended college there (Brown Univ.) and asked if I knew where the club was, etc. I said I'd never been there, but did know some of the physicians treating the survivors at Rhode Island Hospital. At that point, she mentioned that she had witnessed a similar tragedy: the Our Lady of the Angels fire in 1958. Her husband's nephew George Canella died in the fire, and she could recite the exact date (12/1/58) from memory, without pausing to think. She was returning from work and saw the smoke and hurried to the school, since she had relatives who were students. She recalls seeing a nun lead a group of students out of the building and then go back inside to bring out a second group; since I have now read the book, perhaps this was Sr. Andrienne Carolan.

The weird thing was that I had very vague memories of a terrible school fire in Chicago (which is why they were so strict about fire safety drills in my Kindergarten) and now, forty years later, one of my patients fills in all the details on a personal level. What a small world. I then did an internet search and discovered this site, and also learned about the book (which I have now bought and read). Today we have grief counselling and professionals to help children through tragedies, but back then it must have been awful for people to have lost loved ones and have no one with whom to discuss their feelings. I have to salute the people who survived and who carried on in the face of their losses, it's really remarkable.

passatdoc@cox.net


Posted by: Richard M. Robinson On: 3/16/2003 ID: 74
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before Central & Augusta, Chicago Il.
First things first, my heart and all of my sympathy goes out to all of the children,their families,and friends,and the three nuns who were lost in this tragic fire. I did not attend OLA, I was playing in my school playground, and was watching the smoke from the fire not knowing at the time what was on fire. My attachment to this fire is that my father was with Eng.Co.85 of the C.F.D,and was the first firemen on the scene.I was told that my father was trying to get as many children out of the window he was at on his ladder. Inow that he was dropping kids to the ground trying to save them. My father and the rest of the firemen were forever changed from that day on until he passed away in 1972. I am still trying to forgive my father for what he had done to our family, but now I have some understanding to some of his emotional problems that in turn affected my growing up. If anybody out there has any information, or worked with him please e-mail me at RRobi98963@aol.com. If you have a chance I suggest that you go to the Chicago Fire Museum at St. Gabreil School at 45thand Wallace, Chicago Ill., the museum is open every third Saturday of the month,and has some interesting things about the fire.

Again my heart goes out to all of you.

Thank you,

Richard M. Robinson


Posted by: JoAnn Pellettiere Luke On: 3/4/2003 ID: 73
Enrolled on 12/1/58? Present on 12/1/58? Injured? Age Grade Classroom Teacher
Yes Yes No 12 7 208 Sister St. Canice
At the time of the fire, I was 12 years old and a 7th grade student ... A student in Room 208. The fire claimed 13 victims from 208 ... Sister St. Canice and 12 of my classmates. As fate had it (or I guess I should say it was the will of God) even though I was in school that day, I was not in Room 208 at the time of the fire. As one of the upper-classmen of the school, I was sometimes called on to assist the nuns in the lower grades. Such was my fate on December 1st. I was one of two students who were asked to help a first grade nun with a birthday party.

It was the end of the day ... Around 2:30 ... When Margie Marzullo and I packed up our books and coats, left room 208 and went down those back stairs to a classroom that was located directly beneath 208. It was 2:30 and we went down those same stairs that would carry that horrendous fire a short time later. We helped serve cupcakes and then began to get the first-graders ready to go home. But the fire bell rang instead of the dismissal bell. We thought it was a mistake ... But knew the drill and started filing out of the building. I had my coat but didn't bring books as I thought for sure I would be returning for the 'real' dismissal. We exited on to Avers Avenue through a door that was directly across the street from my Aunt's house. I also lived on Avers ... Just north of the school at 936.

I will never forget what I saw and heard when I reached the street. The blackest smoke I ever saw was pouring from the windows of the second floor ... My classroom being one of the burning rooms. I saw kids jumping and hitting the concrete. I heard those screams for help. People on the ground were frantic, yet helpless. I heard fire engines but they were nowhere to be seen. Students leaving the building were being brought into neighbors' homes. People were bringing out coats and blankets. Parents were arriving to pick up their children as they normally did and frantically began searching for their family. There were attempts at putting ladders together so they could reach the trapped on the second floor. There was a small grocery store on Avers, right by the alley by the school ... The owner Barbara was out in the alley trying to calm the trapped students. I ran down the street to my home and saw my mother leaning out the second-floor window. I remember telling her to call the fire department. I thought about my brother in third grade, my cousins in sixth and eighth, my neighborhood friends, and, of course, my classmates in 208. My family was one of the lucky ones ... It wasn't long before we knew that my brother and cousins had all escaped unharmed.

But it was a chaotic time ... A body at one of the neighboring hospitals had been tentatively identified as mine. My cousin was a nurse there and corrected the error. But not before my mother received the phone call and a newspaper person came to the door to talk about the bad news. My name was on one of the first published victim lists and we actually received telegrams and condolence cards from relatives in California.

The day blurred into the next and the days to follow. While my second-floor window provided some viewing, the papers and television provided the horrific details. I learned of my classmates and Sister St. Canice who had died; my injured neighbors: Jim Krajewski, Mary Brock and Bob Trybalski; my neighbor who died: Raymond Makowski; and what seemed to be an endless list of victims and injured people. Being down the street from the school, I could not escape the constant sight of that destroyed building and could not help reliving the day over and over.

Over the next year I watched the building of the new school and, though I never attended classes there, celebrated its opening. There was no such thing as grief counseling those days. People coped as best they could. But we were a strong neighborhood and a strong parish and we helped one another. I don't remember being stopped from talking about it; at the same time, never really encouraged to do so.

My mother kept a book with news clippings and those condolence cards. I just looked at it for the first time in a long time; and, must admit, even though I never forgot, I have not thought so much about that day for a very long time. I had lived in California for awhile and there was even less there to remind me. As the years passed and I had left the neighborhood, I found fewer and fewer people I felt could really understand what I had experienced that day. Life does go on; but I can never forget ... I still struggle to light a match and still pause at 3 p.m. on December 1st. Can't help but wonder what happened to that first-grade girl who's birthday party brought me out of 208 that day. I look at my fireman brother-in-law Ron and other firemen I know and marveled at what they chose to do for a living long before 9/11. I don't think I ever experienced 'survivor's guilt' but sometimes can't help but wonder why things worked out for me the way they did.

It is nice to have this opportunity to share these experiences and feelings with others. I read my sister-in-law's note (#63)and learned things about her I had never known before.

I guess that just as we won't forget; we also continue to heal.

joann2speak@ameritech.net


Posted by: Reggie Zavon On: 3/4/2003 ID: 72
At OLA on 12/1/58? Born before or after 12/1/58? Where Lived on 12/1/58?
No Before 4200 West Division Street
I had attended OLA for catachism classes while I was at Orr Public School. I would have been enrolled at OLA the year of the fire but had been moved to Our Lady of Bethlehem Academy. My best friend Jeannie was at OLA the day of the fire. She was in one of the second floor classrooms and did manage to escape by climbing out of the window and crossing a drain pipe of some sort to safety. I was never allowed to talk to her about that horrible day, so I can't confirm if that is what actually happened to her. A few months later, my family took her with us to the circus. The crowd and noise proved to be too much for her and we left. The next day the toaster in the kitchen was smoking and my poor friend burst into tears and was terrified. I have often wondered what happened to her and if the emotional scars of the fire ever left her.


Posted by: Matt Plovanich On: 2/28/2003 ID: 71
Enrolled on 12/1/58? Present on 12/1/58? Injured? Age Grade Classroom Teacher
Yes Yes No 10 5 207 Sr. Geraldita
To whoever posted the question about "clergy" abuse by any of the priests assigned to OLA. I served as an altar boy at OLA more times than I care to remember. Many of these times I was alone in the rooms behind the altar of the church with every priest on staff. Never once was there any HINT of improper behavior by any one of them. The were middle class, "down to earth" normal guys. We as a community enjoyed them very much. My answer to you is NEVER!