Please remember the children and the teachers that lost their lives 53
years ago today in Chicago.

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I remember the day well. My mother had taken us to Evanston to buy new hockey skates when we heard the news on the radio. The fact that many of the children were our age made it even more frightening.

I was 10 at the time and attending a small Catholic school on the North Side. Still remember watching the story unfold on the news that afternoon. The horror and tragedy of it has remained with me all these years. My son, now 20, attended a small Catholic school here in San Diego. I spoke of the OLA fire numerous times to the faculty and staff.

[b]WE were all in shock that day of the fire. I was working at division and Kedzie as a TV repairman and we and all the customers were in shock. It was a hard thing to forget for sure.[/b]

Although this fire occured 8 years before I was born. I heard a story where my a few of my relatives were walking with their friends. And following the fire engines (PLUS, The walking distance was about 3-5 miles) As far as they went. Yet, It would turn out that the major fire, Had real grim results, Far beyond belief. Another relative every time when she heard Louis Prima & Keely Smith's "That Old Black Magic", Which ironically was a hit tune at the time of the fire, She couldn't help but thinking of that horrible tragedy.

I was still in the cradle when the tragedy struck but a few short years later I was in school being taught by Sisters of the BVM which was the same order that taught at OLA. Our Sisters were very uneasy about the subject of that fire in particular and fire in general. It wasn’t until years later that I put two and two together and came to realize that some of them had taught there and that they had all lost members of their community there. It must have been a real task for them to teach and befriend schoolchildren in the aftermath of the fire. They were fantastic teachers though. I owe them a lot.

My husband's uncle died in the fire. There is a memorial at Queen of Heaven cemetery in Hillside.

Many of the children are also at Queen of Heaven Cemetery.

I was in 4th grade at St. Benedict's in the North Center neighborhood and found my Mom listening to the live coverage on the radio when I got home that day. I remember her telling my sister and me that, if this were to happen at St. Ben's, just get out of the building.

I believe there is still something disturbingly unsaid about this, the fact that Catholic schools in those days demanded - and received - unquestioned obedience from the students and, just maybe, some nuns did not "give permission" to the kids to simply get out of a burning building and some kids simply stayed inside rather than disobey and incur the wrath of an angry nun. Our religious order at St. Ben's was the School Sisters of St. Francis and we were as regimented there as Marine DIs regiment boots at Parris Island so I firmly beleve this is what happened here with some of those poor kids and that is the real tragedy.

I received a wonderful education, too, but I disliked being, theoretically, taught to "think for myself" only to find that I was a heretic unless my thoughts agreed with accepted dogma. But, such was Catholicism in the 1950s.

While I was born about 12 years after the fire, I remember the first time I heard about it. When I was in fifth or sixth grade,we had a fire drill and none of us took it seriously, we were all laughing and joking during the drill. When we came back in the room, we were all still goofing off until the teacher came in and slammed the door. She then went off on us and warned us if we ever acted like this again during a drill, we would be writing a 10 page report on the Our Lady of Angels fire. She then proceeded to tell us details about it. I sort of wondered if she knew someone that was injured or died in the fire.

At the time of the fire my son was in nursery school that was held in a church in Hyde Park. Instantly it was closed down until fire doors could be installed at the top and bottom of every staircase. Twenty years later when I taught high school and kids would try to ignore a fire drill, goof around, hide in the bathrooms, I used to tell them about the day when 92 children burned to death and they would suddenly get very quiet. Nobody who lived through that will ever forget it.

Diogenes, there were newspaper articles about the fire at the time of the 50th annivesary. One issue discussed was obedience vs common sense since, according to the article, the Sisters had been told to keep the children at their desks and it was "disobedient" sisters who got their students out the windows. What I personally remember was that immediately after the fire the papers described the bodies of children who had died of smoke inhalation as being found at their desks "in an attitude of prayer". How strange it is to realize that those children would be grandparents now. Also, it was just before Christmas and they showed how mothers had put toys on Lay-Away at stores. We had only one or two TV channels then but this story was covered.

"One issue discussed was obedience vs common sense since, according to the article, the Sisters had been told to keep the children at their desks and it was "disobedient" sisters who got their students out the windows."

Yes, Querencia, this is something that's impressed indelibly on my memory and which I still find very disturbing. I really didn't see anything about the anniversary of the fire since I've lived in Florida for 28 years now but I've found that I could leave Chicago but Chicago has never left me. I treasure my memories of my life there but the regimentation of my Catholic school is something I do not. But, I've mellowed somewhat since that happened several lifetimes ago so I'm not as bitter as I once was. Still, I find it still heartbreaking that those poor little kids died so miserably that day.

I am 63 yrs old and remember this incident clearly. My father was a Chicago fireman at the time so my family had inside info. The children were instructed by the nuns to stay where they were and sit at their desk and pray and they would be rescued shortly. All the children and nuns that died suffered from smoke inhalation first, passed out and burned to death. My father told me if this happened at my school don't listen to those nuns and get the hell out of the building. My dad was straight forward and to the point.

There is a web page memorial with FAQs
http://www.olafire.com/

There is also a memorial on Find a Grave
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=vcsr&GSvcid=14833



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2012 09:20PM by coffeemom.

I was in kindergarden at Ryerson, the public school south of OLA when the fire happened. My mother had taken me to enroll at OLA the year before the fire. While we were at the school, I acted like a big cry baby, and the nuns said, I was not ready for school. I guess it pays to sometimes be a brat.
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A college friend told me that she and her sister attended Our Lady of the Angles.

The day of the fire they were both home sick. A neighbor came down the sidewalk screaming up at their apartment to try to get their mother's attention. "Where are the girls?" she cried frantically. "The school is burning!"

Much to her relief, they were home. My friends and her mom hadn't heard about the tragedy yet.

My grandfather and all my great uncles were firemen at the time, but all my links to them are passed on. I don't even know what houses they worked at or what trucks and/or engines.

Does anyone know how to find rosters of who fought the fire there?

I know none of them died fighting the fire, but it would be nice to know they were there to help.

I think I remember a story about one of my relatives taking a vacation day or something and the fireman who covered for him died.

I remember the fire well. I was just starting kindergarten at St. Priscilla on the northwest side, but my dad's family came from just north of that area and there was a lot of talk about the fire around the house. Interesting side note, there used to be a "satellite" of one of the public schools on the southeast corner of Addison and Narragansett. It was a frame building. As a result of the OLA fire, the school was closed and torn down, and the land was leased by the Board of Education and apartment buildings, now standing, were built on the property. I believe the current owners of the apartment buildings only have a leasehold on the property, and do not own it outright.

my mom had friends tha died in that fire she cried when she told of it