Our Lady of the Angels

I started this plog post on December 2nd while still up at my daughter's, but I have decided to finish it.

Yesterday's date in 1958, a horrible tragedy happened in Chicago.  A Catholic school--Our Lady of the Angels-- caught fire and 92 students and three nuns were killed.  They never had a chance.

At the time, I was a relatively new 6th grade student in Oak Park, IL, the first suburb west of Chicago on what would become Interstate 290.   The fire occurred at the end of the day--I think a Friday--and all of the Chicago television news was full of it.  I was a kid.  I was a kid in school.  I soaked it all up as if a sponge...a sponge that could do nothing but watch and feel and hurt for the families involved.

The fire apparently started in a trash barrel in the basement at the foot of the wooden staircase.  The staircase provided a perfect updraft for the heat and flames.  Other things took place, as well.  People made mistakes.  In short order, the main route of escape (the stairs) was destroyed by fire.  The fire alarm wasn't rung early enough; the fire department was stalled for minutes by a locked gate; nothing went well, and kids died.  Lots of kids.

The next Monday, just after lunch, the fire alarm in my own school building sounded.  Very somber students marched dutifully out of the school.  It was a drill, but it was a drill with a purpose.  I was in what would now be considered middle school, yet I can't remember a single sound coming out of the kids as we, for once, did what we were supposed to do.

Years later, when I became a teacher in my own right, I was teaching in a very old school building with wooden floors and wooden staircases.  At least one fire drill each year would block off the main staircase, and we would be directed to go down the fire escape.  It wasn't perfect but at least it was a plan.  Every year thereafter, in all of the places I've taught in which I was responsible for kids, I told them the story of the Our Lady of the Angels School fire so that they might know that fire drills are serious business.  Did they get it?  Probably not.  Never sinks in until it happens to you, right?

As a result of that horrible fire, many national laws regarding school construction were made to protect children.  I can't begin to tell what they all are.  I do know that wooden staircases had to be enclosed with doors, top and bottom, to help prevent updrafts, and that hallway doors, etc., could not be "stoppered" open.  (Some schools have doors that are held open by magnets, but the minute a fire alarm is sounded, the magnets automatically shut off and the doors close.)

I know that today's children are much better protected than the kids of my generation, yet they don't seem any less scared (due to circumstances about active shootings, etc.)  The survivors of the OLA fire would be relatively my age now.  I'm sure they will never forget that day.  I want them to know that I haven't, either...and I wasn't even there.  God bless you all!