16. Third grade class photo
Events of tragedy have the impact of making people remember exactly where they were, and what they were doing when the news hit. For all Chicagoans, December 1, 1958 was a day of such sadness that the memory floats on like a horrible nightmare, a dream with impacting pictures frozen forever, yet awakened again at the simple mention of the words, Our Lady of the Angels.
It's a cold December afternoon. Susie and I have walked home from school with Joyce and Michelle and their big sister Janice. We climb the stairs to the apartment on Courtland and walk in the front door which is in the hallway between the living room and the dining room. Judy is playing on the floor with her doll and my mother welcomes us home. We go to our room, take off our uniforms and come back to turn on the television. American Bandstand and the Mickey Mouse Club are favorites. We don’t have homework and can play or watch tv until dinner.
Before the evening news is on, the programming is interrupted by a news bulletin. The words travel across the bottom of the screen, but I’m not paying enough attention to understand the message. Finally, after a few more bulletins, I call my mother into the living room to tell her something is going on. She stands there, a dish towel in her hand, staring at the tv. Her hand goes to her lips and she silently whispers, “oh my God, no...”
It should be obvious to her that Susie and I are home, we are safe, we are playing right in front of her. But the news is so disturbing, she draws us closer and holds on tight without taking her eyes off the television. When we question, she seems to waken from a trance, and answers vaguely, changing the channel and not ready to let us know what has happened.
By December 2, I understand. I see the pictures of the dozens of children, kids my own age, plastered across the front page of the newspaper. A fire at Our Lady of the Angels School, a few miles south of St. Pete’s, has taken the lives of 93 children and three nuns. The blaze started only minutes before the dismissal bell was to ring. The fire alarm malfunctioned and there was no direct connection to the fire department. The fire was reported by people in the neighborhood who saw the smoke. Before it was all over, entire classrooms succumbed to smoke inhalation - with students still sitting at their desks. Children jumped from second floor windows to escape the blaze; firemen frantically plucked kids from ledges and tossed them down to adults from the neighborhood who tried to catch them or break their falls. The old building was engulfed quickly and lives were lost in seconds.
My mother has pretty much given up her effort to keep the information about the tragedy from us - even as a third grader, I will read anything that I can get my hands on - and the newspaper reports every tragic detail it can drain from hospital personnel, firefighters, parents, children, priests, the archdiocese - anyone who will say anything. All the kids were taken to St. Anne’s Hospital - where I just had my tonsils taken out. I read all that I can before school. The paper is on the floor in the bathroom where my father left it and if I don’t put it down, I’ll be late for school. I get a nervous feeling in my stomach as I look into the faces of the kids who are dead - they look so much like the kids at St. Pete’s. That night I dream of being in a fire and looking frantically for Susie.
At school, the teachers are all buzzing with news of the fire. The closeness of our parishes insures that there are some who have lost friends or relatives - it becomes one of those school days where not a whole lot gets done. Over the intercom, Sister Superior asks us to pray for the souls of the children and teachers who have died. We go to mass, teachers are in and out of the classrooms, papers are brought in and out by students relaying messages, and we go home knowing that our school, too, has been affected by fire and things will never be the same again.
The fire continues to dominate newspapers and local television. A photo of a fireman emerging from the rubble with a dead child in his arms will haunt everyone in Chicago for years and years to come. The image of the small white coffins at a combined funeral for the victims will last in my mind forever.
By the time we come back from Christmas vacation, things have drastically changed at St. Pete’s. Over break, the school - along with almost every other school in the city- has been inspected for fire safety. Our school does not do well in the inspection. Classes will no longer being held in the basement because of the glass block windows. This cuts the number of classrooms back by at least six and a need to reallocate almost 300 students. Additionally, students from Our Lady of the Angels (which enrolled 1200 students) are being taken in by neighboring parishes. With our loss of classrooms, how can we possibly help?
We go on half-day shifts. The entire school day lasts a bit longer for the administrators but we attend school for the rest of the year only during the morning while others attend in the afternoon. We have to share our desks. My room is on the second floor and the desks are the black, old fashioned kind on wooden runners. The inside space in the desk for our books is split exactly in half and we are restricted to one side or the other. Mrs. Higgins explains to us how important it is now to be neat and orderly - even moreso than before - and to respect the property of the student who comes in the afternoon. Everything feels tight in the classroom because there is twice as much “stuff” from both students and teachers - not to mention additional supplies being stored upstairs while the renovations are being completed in the basement.
St. Peter Canisius was at capacity before the fire. Now, plans to add a new building to the school have to pick up speed and a fund raising effort begins. Since the school sits right on North Avenue, with the church and rectory to the west, homes to the south and the convent to the east, the parish must look further east for any available land. The new building will be constructed a block away, right next to the CTA bus yard, and ready for occupancy by fall of 1960.
The opening of the new school would be special event to the parish and the neighborhood. It had a modern look - only one level - and the school did its best to make sure every student spent at least a year in a building with new desks, bright windows and no stairways.
But by 1975, urban flight has hit the neighborhood and before long, the new school is empty. The building was sold and taken over by the State of Illinois Welfare Administration. By 1990, that is gone, too. The property
sat abandoned, windows broken, weeds growing high in front, sidewalk cracked and an empty sadness enveloped the building.You could still see the holes in the bricks on the outside wall, where they removed the crucifix.
