I lived in Chicago for 25 years. while working at a bank years back, one of our regulars was a gal that survived this fire! The poor lady was BADLY scarred, missing an ear, etc. but she had the best attitude and outlook on life I've ever seen!! She and I got to be on a first name basis as she came into the bank a few times a month. My heart went out to her; I had trouble fathoming her great personality after such a horrific childhood tragedy. She was 9 when the fire broke out in `58. She lost her little sister in it too. I eventually moved back home to NE., but received word this gal had passed away--my old boss called me to let me know. I dropped my work/plans and flew back for her funeral. They were short one pallbearer, and I asked if I could fill in. The family was fine with it! And I was only too proud to do so. I will remember that lady for the rest of my life. May she RIP.
An amazing lady like her lacked pallbearer? It crushed me when this happened to my uncle... like no one cared. Somehow this information has lessened the pain. Thank you for sharing.
Small world! To believe she’s now with the sister he tragically lost. Rest in peace to both of them. Amazing you had the opportunity to meet this person
People do not think for themselves. I sprained my ankle at work and had to go to the hospital. One of the team leads wanted me to call my boss and ask to leave TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL. Ummm no it's my medical emergency and I'll do what's best for my health.
"There are no new lessons to learn here, only old ones." It's incredible how accurate that remark was. Fires and disasters don't avoid buildings because they were grandfathered in. Sadly, 90+ people died in the spirit of pinching pennies
The statement is correct.....all of the causes of the disaster were already known and were part of building codes. The fact that cities were not using these lessons and codes is what caused the issue. If there is any new lesson to learn it would be to actually apply previous lessons learned to all buildings regardless of age.
It's unfortunately unsurprising that quote is accurate. It honestly seems like half of the time he's covered an indoor fire disaster, at least one of the fire doors is locked and ends up getting people killed.
Saving money was only part of the problem. First there was the dumb rule nobody is allowed to turn on the fire alarm except the principal. This caused the first nun/teacher to wander around looking for him before evacuating her class, plus she never turned on the fire alarm. Second it appears none of the first teacher/nuns to realize the building was on fire knocked on any other classroom doors during the evacuation. Every class found out the building was on fire when they saw smoke of flames, so evacuated. Then the next class only found out when they saw smoke or flames enter their classroom, then evacuated. Then the next class only found out when they saw smoke of flames entering their classroom, so evacuated. Finally much later the fire alarm was sounded. I would have sounded the alarm ASAP. They can reprimand or fire me after the children are out. Third the fire escape was locked. None of the teachers had a key to unlock it. Maybe, only the principal did, and he was outside on the ground. If every teacher had had a fire escape key, they could have evacuated much sooner. Fourth the courtyard was blocked by metal bars. Fifth the teacher/nuns had no clue what was the best thing to do in the event of a fire. Other than tell the principal and ask him what to do, but he wasn't available. So the teachers had to guess. Some guessed wrong and doomed themselves and their students. Plus most likely the children didn't know what to do in the event of a fire, other than to follow their teacher. So any who were separated wouldn't know where to go or what to do. They probably hadn't been told about the fire escapes. If they had conducted even one fire and evacuation drill at any time, they most likely would have discovered many of not all of these problems, and the teachers and children would know what to do in the event of a fire. But, the one thing a fire drill would not have solved is the principal being a retarded control freak who didn't trust and of the teachers. In a drill he would have been standing right there to sound the alarm and unlock fire escapes. He wasn't smart enough to think about if he wasn't there when the fire occurred. So really they would need a different principal and then conduct a fire and evacuation drill. If they had done this, likely every person would have survived this fire, and it wouldn't have cost a dollar. On the flip side, they could have had a brand new school, with all the new safety codes, and still had 100 kids die. As dumb and as much of a control freak as this principal was, he may have locked all the fire exits and turned off the fire alarm's power from his office. If there was a sprinkler system in the new school, he may have padlocked the water to it off. Then told the teachers if there is a fire to notify him and he would turn the alarm power back on, and turn the sprinkler water back on, and unlock the fire exits. Then he will give instructions to every teacher in every class on which exits to use and where to go. If this sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration, too dumb to be plausible, just look at what did happen. It isn't much different.
@PlasmaStorm73 [N5EVV] Yes I agree with that. But I doubt anyone could have convinced this principal to leave them always unlocked. Maybe get locked from the outside, but always will open from the inside fire escape doors. But new locks would cost a little money and the guy running the place was a moron.
It's even more accurate when you remember that the Collinwood School fire happened just two years prior to the school being built and yet it was built with most of the same problems and had the same overcrowding of students in the name of penny pinching
Holy shit I’ve been waiting for this one. My grandpa was one of the responding firefighters, talking about it made him cry. RIP John M. Smullen 1926-2019
Thank you to your grandpa for courageously rescuing those children. I had a teacher, in high school, who survived that tragedy. She was a very tough teacher, but she had a heart of gold. I had her for honors geometry class. Salute to your grandpa, and to all those who risked their lives to help save others without a second thought. They ARE the true heroes!!
If you're wondering why older school buildings were given that grandfather clause, consider how many children were in each of these classrooms. Two things had happened that meant schools in American cities were bursting at the seams: people had been moving from towns to cities in large numbers, and the big cohorts of the Baby Boom generation were now of school age. The population of school aged kids had grown faster than the construction of new schools could match. If city authorities had closed the older schools temporarily to bring them up to code, they would have had to scramble to find places for those kids to go to school. Unfortunately they decided to deal with that problem by allowing the older schools to stay open and hoping for the best. And the students of OLA ended up paying the price for that bad decision.
Even in the UK in the 1990s, my comprehensive school (pupils aged 11-16) had 'classrooms' in wooden sheds because the main school building couldn't cope. The main building was a straight line with three levels, a ground floor and two upper floors, and with two staircases, one near either end. Some of the classrooms in the top-middle of the building could only be reached by going through an adjacent classroom, with no direct access to a staircase. There was a very good fire alarm and there were fire escapes, but I remember it always felt strange to be in one of those middle rooms. It was about 50 years old when they demolished it and built a new school on the same site, I don't think there was ever a fire though, thankfully. But I'm sure some corners were cut to try and cope with capacity demands.
@@bobblebardsley Portakabins themselves may have been (and sometimes continue) to be a stopgap (sometimes lasting decades) but they're at least up to standard in terms of fire safety. Find me a school that's never had temporary classrooms. In any case they exit directly to ground level so there's that.
I mean basically, it boils down to "we don't feel like updating these buildings and finding some temporary place for these kids, we are TIIIIRED". Sorry, the excuse doesn't fly. Yes it would have been difficult, but being a city planner/leader should be a difficult job. It's not just some position to satiate the egos of narcissists.
I was born in Chicago a couple of years after this, but have now ended up in Georgia. In a nearby town is a 2-story house built by a man who survived the Chicago fire of 1871. He designed it so that there is a quick way to the outside from every single room in the home, (upstairs onto a balcony). The windows are tall and the bottom is low to the floor, almost like a door. The house never burned, but this man was comforted by knowing his family wouldn’t be trapped.
One of the teaching nuns who died was found lying over top of her students in a clear attempt to shield them from the fire. This was such a horrific tragedy that could have been prevented.
Out of all those who were scarred or died in this catastrophe, I feel particularly touched by Sister Mary Devine, who tried so hard to do right by her students, and Beverly Burda, who perished anyway. How can one teacher be expected to keep track of _sixty-two_ children under _normal_ circumstances, let alone in the chaos of an emergency? Poor Beverly's fate must have haunted Sister Devine for the rest of her life.
It was a consequence of the Baby Boom. The grandfather clause and the number of ankle-biters were both directly tied to the boom. It's another reason to promote birth control, access to abortion, and family planning services.
Why the F*CK didnt the other two teachers warn the other classrooms? And why did they wait until AFTER they had escaped to pull the fire alarm? So selfish”
@@lingricen8077 They didn't just have time. By the time they realized they needed to get out, they barely had enough time to do it themselves. And the fire alarm could only be pulled by the principal or janitor, the latter of whom was helping the kids in the annex escape by getting the fire escape open. Fire spreads remarkably fast when unimpeded. Go watch the reproduction of the Station Nightclub fire, for example and see how long it takes for flashover to happen...
I personally know a survivor of this fire. Sixty years later, he will say, yes, he was there, he was a little child, but he absolutely cannot talk about what he saw that day. Still traumatized by it..
In 1958 I was in the 3rd grade at Columbia Elementary School in Champaign, IL, a school built in 1906 and suffering from some of the same deficiencies as Our Lady. Following the disaster, we had weekly fire drills (and it was a very cold, wet winter) requiring us to go outside. The following summer the school was ungraded with new doors, alarms and sprinklers. All this made the tragedy something I've never forgotten. Columbia remained in use for the rest of the 20th century and the building still is in use.
My elementary school was built in 1923. It had a grand staircase in the middle which, while beautiful, was a fire hazard. It would have acted like an enormous chimney, sucking smoke and flames up to the upper floors. Sometime in the 1980s, fire codes were upgraded and the staircase was enclosed with a firewall. The school district is lucky it didn't learn the hard way, I suppose.
@@lionorlying4212 Survivors talked of how they could see very little due to the thick black smoke. The windows were also high off the floor, so many smaller children couldn't reach. All those kids frantically trying to get out those windows at once probably caused a huge pileup.
It wasn’t just the “grandfathering” of the structure that killed those people, but decisions made by the school authorities such as locking a fire escape door from the outside, giving only one person the ability to sound the alarm and locking the gate across the courtyard. These decisions show a lack of concern for safety.
Not so different from what some US politicians want to turn US schools into now, demanding locked doors, all entrances (and hence all exits) blocked etc to keep gunmen out. Rather lock the children inside a fire trap to reduce the number of gun death in case of a school shooting than do something about the guns to stop the shootings from happening in the first place. And if ur in doubt, Im not American. And we non Americans look at the sh*tshow over there in horror. We have gun laws. We also have zero mass shootings and very few shooting in general. Not to mention FAR less murders, suicides and violent crimes per capita than u guys. But no, they still claim, its not the guns, even tho all the evidence 100% shows, thats the difference. So lock the kids up in their schools, so a fire can kill them all as a "solution".
A tragedy as great as this one always has multiple grave mistakes involved. So many things have to go wrong at the same time for so many lives to be lost.
It also sounds like there was a fire door on the first floor, but not on the second? If that was the case, the extra time might have made a huge difference.
It's the same with other places such as theatres, nightclubs, and factories where other horrific fires have occurred. It's all about control, trying to keep people inside to keep them from sneaking out without paying or to keep workers at their machines. In this case, I'm sure they wanted to ensure students stayed inside and didn't sneak out for a smoke or to play hooky. The owners' or managers' desire for control and not losing profits was more important than safety and peoples' lives.
I legitimately wouldn't be surprised to go back through all of the indoor fire disasters this channel has covered thus far, count up the number of instances in which the fire exits alone are locked, and find the result to be half or more of said disasters Capitalism only cares about profit, not human safety or lives after all. [/waits for someone to completely miss the point and think I'm endorsing communism wholeheartedly]
Criticism of how the Cook County Coroner (an elected position whose office had become a dumping ground for patronage) handled the inquest eventually led to it being replaced by the Medical Examiner's office (an appointed position that is staffed by medical professionals).
Factoid: Jonathan Cain (keyboardist for the band Journey) was a 3rd grader at the school. As he was on the first floor, he and his class were able to escape. He writes about the impact the fire had on him throughout his life in his 2018 autobiography - "Don't Stop Believing"
I remember a woman talking about how she missed the fire by faking a stomach ache. She got into it with one of the crossing guards. Who was also a student. She didn't want to get in trouble so she's faking illness. Her older sister and the crossing guard was killed in the fire.
A lot of disasters have those little twists of fate. I watched an episode of Mayday: Air Disaster recently where a guy on a flight moved to the back of the plane so he could smoke (it was the 70s) and the plane crashed and the section he had been in was obliterated. Smoking saved his life.
@@travismiller4320 There's a channel for it here on youtube. Just older episodes though. They licensed out the episodes that don't run on cable anymore. The channel is just called Mayday: Air Disaster. There's a channel called Wonder that also has some episodes.
My grandmother was an ER nurse and took care of the children from this devastating event. She had awful PTSD from it. Her brother in law was a fire chief and became very invested in fire alarm systems and educating his district about them bc of my gran’s trauma.
I first learned about this fire from the book To Sleep with the Angels. A particularly agonizing tragedy in several ways. You handled it with your typical sensitivity. Great video.
I've read it too. As soon as I saw the video title I remembered. It's really a thorough telling and very readable. Especially I remember how it covered the way the fire devastated the neighborhood, which another commentor has mentioned.
My grandfather was a Chicago Firefighter who responded. It affected him deeply and he never discussed it. The men of the fire companies that were there were disbanded and sent to other locations. The neighborhood was virtually abandoned due to the grief of witnesses and survivors. There was accusatory talk on the street that the nuns had forced the children to kneel and pray, delaying the rescue. As grammar school students, we boys would organize and pledge to lead each other out of school if our teachers hesitated. This may have contributed to my own pathological mistrust of authority figures.
My grandparents were looking to transfer my mom to Our Lady of Angels, but the fire happened before the paperwork was finished. My grandmother insisted up to her dying day that the nuns made the children stay at their desks and pray with the only ones who survived being the kids who disobeyed and ran. She was iffy about Catholic schools ever since the fire and kick up a fuss any time I might've transferred to one.
My mother was a girl at another Catholic school in Chicago at the time and she instilled in me this distrust by telling me this story a few times. There was another story of nuns who tied children together on a boat wreck instead of letting each save themself that also left a mark. Grateful to this day for her wisdom.
It is not an accusation but a fact. The children who disobeyed the nuns in two of the classrooms and survived told what happened. One classroom that was further away from the fire could have had most of the students saved if they had left the classroom instead. Because they stayed almost the entire class died from smoke inhalation while they were mostly still seated at their desks.The other classrooms were a different story. Once the fire became worse they tried to save the students. Unfortunately the only way out was through the windows. Which were too high off the ground. One father saved many in his sons classroom. Unfortunately his son was too scared to jump. And when he came back with a ladder ,he watched in horror as the classroom flashed over with his son and the rest of the students dying instantly.
Well, it's not like Catholics haven't gone OUT OF THEIR WAY to provide more than ample evidence that they don't care about children's lives when sh*t hits the fan. It's THE authority in charge to do everything or take care of countermeasures and NOBODY else... from the fire extinguishers secured out of children's reach to locking fire escapes to setting up a fire alarm that ONLY one person in the ENTIRE SCHOOL could operate... Tell me again about all this moral fiber the Christians are so proud of... I just don't see it. ;o)
My mom told me she saw this on the news since she lived in the Chicago area. She said she wept bitterly since she was the same age as the students at the time.
Many of the children in Chicago, felt a lot of sadness during that time. I know I did and carved a cross on my wooden desk at school. The cross was for the lives of the children that lost their lives.
I never learned about it in classes or from teachers in school in Chicago usually, but from older adults telling us about it outside of school. or the very rare Chicago history class that a few schools have. it's still pretty common knowledge among older adults.
We were never taught about it, but I learned about it when I was young on my own. Should note my elementary/middle school was also built in the early 20th century and while it has undergone multiple renovations since I graduated, I thought about it a time or two and if it could happen to us
Grew up on Chicago's north side heard about from my parents who were the same age as the victims they attended Chicago area schools. WTTW channel 11 used to do special tv show every year on the anniversary of the fire too
Which makes me sad for my hometown. Cleveland, OH had the worst school fire in the history of the US (175 dead) in 1908, and barely anyone knows about it.
For a short time, my dad left home. I really don’t know why, I was just a kid. But then this happened and then he came back. He always said that it was a gut punch to him and made him realize what was important.
completely agree, theres a few nightclubs in london I've been to where I couldnt have fun because I was too busy staying back out of the way of crowds and watching the ceilings for smoke. Some places are just set up so that you would have a massive crowd crush in the dark. I usually ask where the fire exits are when I enter a busy building like that
this fire was the reason that basically every school I attended in Chicago was made of concrete, brick, and asbestos, and our fire drills were always taken extremely seriously and done frequently. every school I attended even took false fire alarms very seriously. even workplace fire drills are really important here. we don't always learn about this fire in school even in Chicago, but a lot of older Chicago natives definitely remember this, or their at least their parents telling them about it.
"concrete, brick, and asbestos" Suburbs too. I went to a 1960s vintage school in Palatine in the 80s. That is a perfect description, well, until they were forced to remove the asbestos. And those fire alarms were LOUD. Scared me a LOT as a kid.
Fire drills in my school were such a joke. We had advanced notice and they were only done in first period while were in our homeroom class which was the class we were supposed to line up with. We’d orderly file out, do a count, and file back in. Someone pulled the fire alarm between classes and it was complete madness. We had no idea what to do if we weren’t in homeroom, so most of the day. It’s just a good thing we never had a fire. People never learn.
@@AddieDirectsTV the older I get, the more I'm convinced that the asbestos thing is often a scare for the benefit of extremely expensive removal. It's been shown, leave it alone assuming it's not coming apart, and it's fine. We owned a place that had it for 60 years. Linoleum. Armstrong Montina. 70% asbestos, plus the horrible black tar mastic. There's ads that show it. Easy to find. Trust me. We tried. It wants no part of coming up. Going right over it is safest. At least w a rug. Nothing that'll disturb it. Of all the people who lived there, the oldest were well into their 80s or 90s, nobody died of anything asbestos/lung related. They have glorious floating, waterproof floors that you don't even have to make a hole in. They work, too. Trust me, tho, it ain't coming up. It went in in 1965. Grammy had 5 kids, a husband and a dog. Floor was barely starting to wear. Floor we put in in 1990s was trashed by that point, just saying.
Thanks for covering this one! My grandfather was with the Chicago Fire Department and responded to this tragedy (as well as the Chicago Green Hornet Streetcar Disaster which you also covered a while ago). He never recovered from the trauma of what he witnessed at these two events.
My dad witnessed a fire in a New Orleans high rise that had a beauty salon near the top. I can't remember if the fire started there but women were hanging out of windows and falling/jumping to their deaths. I was a toddler so I only heard about it decades later. and not real clear on the details. My dad never talked about it, but from that point on insisted that we never stay above the second or third floor in hotels. I can't imagine what your grandfather saw and dealt with. 💔
I lived in a 21-floor student accommodation building for three years where there was no way of escape should the main staircase become inaccessible. Additionally, the evacuation procedure for disabled residents was for them to move to a difficult to find 'safe room' on each floor, the door to which was usually locked, and call 999 to tell the dispatcher where they were. Bearing in mind the corridors of this building were virtually identical, the accomodation block was on top of a multi-storey carpark, and the fact that disabled residents were regularly told that they were 'exempt' from fire drills, I dread to think what would have happened if there was ever an emergency situation. I'd say I have no idea how the building passed fire safety inspections, but in truth I know it was because of loopholes similar to the ones in this case - made all the worse by this occurring currently.
I attended the reunion of my late Father’s WW2 unit the Summer ‘The Towering Inferno’ came out. Staying in a high risk hotel, I want a happy camper; the fact I didn’t like heights didn’t help me.
@@jamessimms415 Yeah, that's why I HATE tall buildings and the thought of being any higher than a 3rd or 4th floor creeps me out. Why do humans have to keep pushing boundaries faster than our safety systems can keep up? I really wouldn't want to be higher than a second floor if it was up to me, and my ideal home is basically a concrete or solid stone (like carved into a mountain) bunker. The only wood would be in furniture, the only cloth a combination of furniture, my clothing, curtains, a few spot rugs, spare bedding, and whatever I might have on hand for sewing in this fictional scenario. Concrete and stone don't burn well, and my hatred of wall-to-wall carpet might help me. Although my love of books would counter that somewhat. Of course it means I'd have to stash all the highly flammable stuff, aside from some cooking oil, like lamp oil, matches, candles, oil paint, turpentine, polishing oil and wood varnish in outbuildings, but I'm okay with that. My aunt and uncle lost their home, everything but the clothes on their backs, even their cats. Nothing was salvageable, the fire was that fierce. It was a miracle none of the humans died. A neighbor's house actually blew up- he had a gas leak, apparently, and as a long-time smoker had little sense of smell. They think he woke up, lit his pipe, and BOOM! He survived the explosion but died of his burns a short time later. Also I grew up in Tornado Alley, which was the initial reason I decided I wanted to live in a bunker. Being afraid of my home burning down or blowing up is just an additional reason.
@mildlycornfield sounds like you're in the UK? UK fire safety codes are significantly worse than they are in America. Leaving disabled people in place is standard pretty much everywhere, though, and that's awful.
You bring up a good point. I remember, from a very long time ago, being nonchalant about school fire drills. We really should have been taught about some of these past tragedies. Might have put a dent in our complacency.
OLA actually had regular fire drills, but it was always assumed that the central corridor and staircase would remain passable. If just once, someone had asked "What happens if the central hallway is blocked by fire?" perhaps things would have been different.
At the time of the fire, I was a high school student in Chicago. One of our classmates lost a sister in that fire. The next day the school principal came on the intercom, and read A E Housman's poem "With Rue, My Heart is Laden." The homework assignment that night was to memorize the poem. His purpose was that every time we recited that poem in later life, it would bring back memories of that lost child, and all the friends and relatives that have gone before us. I'm now approaching 80 in a few months and have recited the poem many, many times.
Man you had my hopes up high when telling about all the children who successfully escaped and I thought that maybe the death toll was only going to be the one poor little girl, but then it crushed my heart when you said that 92 children died! That's so terrible, I can't imagine having been there or having to be the one to remove all those little bodies, or tell the parents that their child didn't make it. I'm a paramedic and I've seen my fair share of bad stuff, but fortunately I've never had to experience anything like that. 😢
173 students, 2 teachers and a rescuer died in the worst school fire in US history. The Collinwood School Fire of 1908, in Cleveland OH. To me, it's incomprehensible to be a parent having to watch your child possibly burn or suffocate without being able to do anything.
As the years pass, people are starting to forget this shocking and heartbreaking tragedy. Thanks for helping make sure that it and the children and adults who perished are not forgotten. I was 6 years old and remember the changes made to our school building as a result of the fire.
Wttw channel 11 did a documentary about the fire for a anniversary i think 40th or 50th. Talked to the children that survived and parents still alive that lost and survived children. It was so sad.
The term "shitshow" comes to mind when thinking of this situation. My heart hoes out to the kids lost, injured, and traumatized. This is a nightmare situation for my 37 year old mind. I can't imaging how 10 year old me would deal.
Shit show is good, but cluster f-k is better. These tragedies are so heart breaking, but God never said that life on earth was going to be easy. There will be a grand reunion one day for those God calls His own.
When I was in grade 7 two teens decided to sneak into our school and light the paper room in the basement on fire. We noticed smoke coming through the vents on the third floor and we called the office and not even a minute later an announcement came over the intercom for everyone to evacuate and the fire alarm came on. We all got out safely and the fire was put out but after when we went back into the building we could see black soot covering different parts of the school. We also had to wait outside in the winter for an hour and we did not have our coats. It was a scary time. Can’t imagine what these poor children went through.
Thank you for covering this tragic event. I lived in Akron, Ohio and was 9 years old when this tragedy happened. After this, we had fire drills that consisted of a nun ringing a hand bell in the hallway and us kids forming a line and walking out to the playground. This was before they had fire alarms installed. Over the next few months an alarm system was installed and other upgrades were made. I have often wondered what happened at that school that day. It really had an impact on me. Thank you again.
I'm an Akronite too but I was born in 2005. The thing you're talking about is called a pull rod fire alarm. What was the name of the Catholic school in Akron?
@@charlenegodard564 My girlfriend used to go to that school. It's very close to Garfield HS. I go to STVM, which is also a grandfathered building with its original fire alarm system from 1972. I won't be surprised if the city of Akron condemns STVM in the future due to it being so outdated. I'm kind of shocked the building didn't have a pull rod fire alarm. The ones built after World War II had automatic fire alarm systems along with the pull rods in the event of a power failure. My grandmother went to the original Saint Vincent high school in Akron. I believe the only fire alarm in that building at the time was a metal rod with trip gongs attached to it. I think after this fire, it probably got an automatic fire alarm system that was tied in with the fire department and had an actuator switch attached to the metal rod. there's a guy on RUclips called Old School Fire Alarms, and he is based in the Akron area. My dad is also from Akron. He grew up next to Firestone HS. He went to Saint Sebastian along with his brothers; that school was built in the 40s. it had an IBM automatic fire alarm system with the pull rod and single stroke bells as the fire alarm signals. The nuns were very strict during fire drills and strongly enforced complete silence.
It's like we never learn. The crash bar was invented in 1892 in England. In 1908, the Collinwood School Fire/Lake View School Fire happened which prompted an outcry for better fire safety in schools across the US. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911 demonstrated the importance of not having locked fire exits - which the crash bar is ideal for. But Our Lady of the Angels was not only in an old building, but also a private school. And typically in the US, laws that are passed for public schools often don't apply to private schools. For example, 33 states ban corporal punishment in public schools, but in 31 of those states the ban doesn't apply to private schools. Somehow Iowa and New Jersey are the only states that applied the ban to private schools as well as public schools.
God Bless you for mentioning the Collinwood School Fire and how that affected layouts in schools (though the doors actually DID open outwards - proven later by digging up the foundation). No one remembers that terrible tragedy anymore.
For more on this tragedy, I recommend To Sleep with the Angels, by David Cowan and John Kuenster. An excellent read. Thank you, FH, for covering this one. I had hoped you would, and you did not disappoint. Well done.
The gravesite shown in this documentary is located at the Queen of heaven cemetery in Hillside Ill, I have relatives buried there, and a couple of months ago while visiting them, I thought of this fire out of nowhere, and those who perished. I was obsessed to find these children and pay my respects, and little did I know a great number of the angels were buried here at Queen of heaven, and some across the street at Our Lady of Mt Carmel cemetery, along with the three nuns who lost their lives trying to save these children, Sr Mary Claire Terese Champagne, Sr Mary Seraphica Kelley, and Sr Mary St Canice. The gravesite area at Queen fo Heaven cemetery is named " Shrine of the Holy Innocents", how fitting. I visit the kids whenever I am there visiting my family. I pray for them and their families, such a tragedy. I can't even imagine sending my kids to school, and to have to deal with what these parents, police, firemen et al had to deal with. If you are ever in the area, you should stop by and say a little prayer.
I thought of this fire out of nowhere also, about 10 years ago. As I was 7 at the time it happened, I thought it was something I had just imagined because none of my friends remembered it. It's horrifying to me to know that this really happened.
Thank you for highlighting our tragedies that have often gone overlooked. From the Green Hornet to the Eastland to this one, you help keep the memories of our victims alive
Former Chicagoan here. After seeing your videos on the S.S. Eastland disaster and the Iroquois Theater fire, I was wondering if you'd ever cover this one. Well written, researched and narrated as always!
I find it even more sad, that the Peshtigo fire happened the same day(s) as the famous 1871 Chicago fire and was far more deadly, yet its been all but forgotten.
Just one other thing to note about the basic design of the school: That style with the raised basement or ground level or whatever you want to call it, was particularly popular for school buildings in the US back in the first half of the 20th century. Going into that would be a huge digression into architectural styles and whatnot. (there are particular people and more standardized layouts and whatnot depending on where and when you are actually looking and it turns into a rabbit hole. I fell into that hole because for years I lived in an old school building that had been renovated into apartments and is on the National Register of Historic Places.)
I’ve lived in Chicago my entire life, this tragedy was never far from peoples minds when it came to fire drills in schools and safety. I found out 10 years ago that the original Chicago Fire and Police Department investigation files have been missing for almost 35 years now.
My grandmother worked at this school, but was out that day on maternity leave / also pregnant, when the fire happened. According to my mom, she was screaming and crying at the TV for the nuns to stop praying and to tie the boys pants together into a rope to allow them to escape. My grandmother ended up losing the unborn baby due to the stress of the sheer amount of anguish and guilt she felt. An absolute tragedy :(
Always extra tragic to hear about child perishing those who are supposed to have their whole lives in front if them but are cut tragically short RIP to all the victim of those horror tragedy
This was a horrifying tragedy and what happened to those kids was criminally negligent by so many people it's hard to say who bore the most blame. That neighborhood was probably never the same. RIP to the victims who never got to live their lives.
If u think, thats bad, look up the Aberfan disaster. Sadly, theres plenty of avoidable tragedies to go around. RIP to the poor children lost in both disasters and so many others.
When I was in fire inspector class I read the book "To Sleep with the Angels" which was written about this tragedy. It was a very well written book and I suggest others read it.
My grandfather was a captain of the Chicago Fire Department during this incident, he passed away 2 years ago but he said this tragedy was the one that always stuck with him. Rip Grandpa. 🚒
The first thing the janitor SHOULD have done was alert at least one nearby classroom of the fire so they could alert others of it before he left for the other building.
@@paulrasmussen8953 That’s all well and good for you to say, but the reason why you have codes and rules during an emergency is so that you have rehearsed thinking. Panic can set in and you don’t think logically, so if you have a plan, at least you aren’t frozen or dithering about your next move. It’s not his fault that the code was poorly conceived. Easy to look back with hindsight, isn’t it?
Easy to Monday morning quarterback. Have you ever been in a crisis where you have to make instant decisions? This man is a hero. He alerted rectory to call fire department, and risked his own life ran into the building and saved many children.
I taught in Chicago in the 70’s. Once the fire alarm went off when I was on lunchroom duty. We evacuated, crossing 25 ft, down 4 steps, out the door to the sidewalk, down the sidewalk probably 100 ft. By the time I was counting noses, the fire trucks were already there & had the hoses off the trucks!! - what had happened was: The Principal saw a big student accidentally whack the fire alarm w his shoulder. He instantly picked up the wall phone located right beside the fire alarm, to let them know the call was accidental. “We’ve already rolled the trucks.” They had rolled in less than a min.!! The Principal apologized. Fire Response: “We’d rather come to 1,000 false alarms than one real fire at a school!” The efficiency & focus of those Chicago firemen still gives me chills 50+ years later!!
My dad was 12 that year and would have been in one of the affected classrooms where many died, IF his parents had lived in that parish. He was in another 1 and attended schools there. I asked him about Lady of Angels, and he didn't remember much. As a side note, I had a chemistry teacher at my Catholic HS in 1986 to 1988 who was always yelling at us kids to not have anything blocking any pathways in the classroom, always saying it was a fire hazard. I don't know if it was due to being a chem classroom, or if perhaps she had been at the Lady of Angels parish all those years before, and was very much into fire safety for a damned good reason! She was like 60ish years old then.
Thank you for doing this one. My mother was home in Chicago with two young children who, if a little older, could have gone to this school. She was always devastated by this tragedy and was always watchful for fire exits and fire safety.
I remember this fire very well. I was 8 years old and attending a Catholic grade school not that far away from OLA. There was a great deal of talk about this for months afterward.
Horrible tragedy. I learned about it when reading Jonathan Cain's - the keyboardist and one of the songwriters in Journey - autobiography. He was one of the survivors from that horrible fire.
Very sad, and like the present day situations .... we can not forget our history and the lessons we've learned from it... may those unfortunate one's rest in peace
Before I even watch this, thank you for covering. I didn't hear about this fire until attending a family wedding near the Chicago Merchandise Mart. At the time, the Mart had a large display of Chicago history including story of Our Lady fire. Right then, my father told me with tears in his eyes and anger in his voice that his cousin survived but had permanent burn scars. Not sure how he escaped because according to his account, the nuns told the children to stay under their desks to pray and wait for help.
Some nuns, not all. There was a man, that went to the school, and saw his son in the window. His son, threw an object out to his Dad, he left the window and died. The son was in a classroom where a lot of kids died. Perhaps, one of classrooms where they were told to pray.
I had a teacher, in high school, that survived that tragedy. She was about 9 or 10 when it happened. She was a very tough teacher, but she had a heart of gold. I grew up about a mile from Our Lady Of The Angels’ School. I had gone through Catholic Schools from 5th to 12th. I’d give ANYTHING to be able to go back to Our Lady Of Grace, and Madonna High School. I hope that the children and teachers are resting peacefully in their eternal slumbers.
I remember this happening as I was in a similar school a few miles away. This did bring about many reforms in building codes but it's been an uphill battle nationally against grandfather clauses. Now there is a push by some to go backwards and decrease the amount of fire exits to as little as one to limit access for school shooters. We can't have that
Such a tragedy on so many levels. While the cause of the fire is unknown, I've heard that it may have been intentionally started by a disgruntled student (or former student). If that's true, then that makes this an even more heartbreaking story than it already is!
I believe the rumor is that there was a troubled student who most likely started the fire in one of the wastepaper baskets. And while it's reprehensible to start a fire, he was still a kid and would have had no idea the school was a deadly firetrap. If that story is true, I can only imagine how terrible it must have been for him when what was probably a bit of childish mischief resulted in the deaths of so many of his friends and classmates. The real tragedy was not caused by the fire starting, but by the complete lack of preparation that helped the fire spread and kept the students from escaping.
My good friends dad was in third grade at the time, he was the door holder during the fire. His job was to hold the door until the 4th grade door holder was there to hold it for the 5th graders. He remembers waiting for the 4th graders and them never Comming. He was eventually rushed out by a nun working there. It really was a tragedy.
93 children died? That's not a tragedy, it's a catastrophe! How was it that those who first discovered the fire fail to raise the alarm to the rest of the classes? They should have evacuated immediately. I can't even begin to imagine the grief the families of those poor children had to endure. May their souls rest in peace.
I thought the same at first, but then I realised - they did, what they were instructed to do. The appaling requirement of having to find and notify the principal first, and only he could pull the fire alarm, was really at fault. In hindsight, yes, they should absolutely have immidiately started evacuating their class and simultaniously warned the other classes to do the same, but when they had clear orders on what to do in case of a fire, its understandable, that they followed their standing orders. The teachers were heroic in trying to save the children, they should not have any blame on them for a disastrously poor "system" in case of fire or for the city failing to implement the mandated fire safety features.
I always wonder about disasters like these, ones potentially caused by a person being careless. I wonder if they'd spent years thinking about this, feeling an incredible amount of guilt - or did they only feel relief and contentment that they weren't caught, thoughtless of the lives that were affected?
Actually,there was a belief that a student started the fire deliberately. There were never charges brought since he was only 12 or 13 yo. He grew up to be a troubled soul.
Probably a little of both, I think most people who commit a crime and get away with it feel relief, that's just human. You make it sound like that's the wrong answer though, as if you judge them for not wanting to be caught. It's worth remembering that if it was started by a person, it was a child. It's unlikely that they planned to burn the whole school down, it was likely just childish mischief. The only ones who really should carry the guilt of the 92 dead children are the people who made it impossible for them to escape. Fires happen, that's why we have fire safety regulations. They were ignored because the school liked money and power. That's where the guilt lies.
@@alice45-fgd-456drt disagree. Greed is not the all consuming evil. It makes sense to hold occupancies to the standards in effect at the time the structure and apply current standards to new buildings. If you believe greed killed these kids (and not the fire starter) then the government must pay for ALL upgrades to current standards this costing taxpayers.
4:16 The rage... The sheer, unadulterated anger coursing through me at the word 'locked'... Those kids were *lucky* that someone could unlock the door. I hope whoever locked it in the first place spent every single remaining moment of their life in agonizing regret.
Please note: most classrooms I have worked in (and in many school districts) have 2 exits from each classroom. The scary part is that due to design, some exits are on the same wall and use the same hall. One second door exited to another classroom (with a door to the outside).
I'm a retired, 3rd generation inter city firefighter. Dad helped out in training on occasion. I accidently saw the movie "WHY?" while he was preparing to teach a class. It was a documentary on this fire and it rocked me to the core. I can thank thank the Dear Lord in 35yrs of service I never had to experience what these people went through. May the Lord grant peace to all who died and survived.
This is actually one of the few disaster stories I've actually heard of before. It was talked about in Elementary school. I mainly remember the part about how the entire school was mainly made of wood and the fire extinguishers were too high off the ground. I have to say, putting a fire extinguish so high up where almost no one can use it seems like such a terrible idea.
I read his book, and learned that information. By the way, the teachers were nuns, not lay teachers. I met a nun years ago who was in the teaching order of that school. She knew the three nuns who died.
I volunteer here almost every week so this was a very interesting video to finally stumble upon. Something that wasn't mentioned is that the original site is now a food pantry run by Franciscans for the last 15 years. I personally helped in its final reconstruction as a retreat center! The Mission of Our Lady of the Angels has a rich history that continues to be written today!
In the 70s the elementary school I went to was old and now gone. High ceilings, tall windows and every door had the window above them. It had wood trim from ceiling to the hardwood floors. The building itself had the same blocks that prisons have from early 1900s. Also the play ground is next to a old cemetery. This place gave all of us kids the creeps.
For people looking for further information, there is a book called “To Sleep With the Angels” by Cowan and Kuenster and a PBS special based on it called “Angels Too Soon.” As a firefighter, the chapter “Firefight” is both chilling and heartbreaking. To put it simply, the building was radically overcrowded in an atmosphere of complete complacency. This fire was no accident, it was set by a fifth grader who was later found to be a firebug, and OLA was not his first fatal fire. When I started grammar school in the late 1970’s, I attended Our Lady of Good Counsel School about seven miles from the OLA fire. Immediately after the fire in early 1959, OLGC had mortgaged all the parish properties to build a new school building that was one story, fire resistive, and round, with each room but the library having its own exterior entrance. They were just about finished paying it off when I was there 20 years later.
Fire trap is an accurate assessment. Just looking at that diagram, and knowing how fast a fire can spread, makes you realize how small the window of survivability was.
My mom worked for a catholic school called Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Morton, PA for many years until it regionalize with another school and changed its name to Our Lady of Angels. My mom had mentioned about this OLA fire when the name of her school was changed and how tragic it was. Well, she never imagine that her school would lead to the same fate later on but thankfully, no one was hurt since the fire happened at night, during the summer and the summer camp they held there was during the day. The fire was caused by electrical wire that had gone bad, the building was built in the late 1930's or early 1940's and maybe it wasn't up to code. The school was rebuilt and opened around 2021 but sadly, my mom wasn't able to be present for the reopening since she had passed away from cancer, which she had began getting treatment around the time the fire happened. She was still teaching until mid 2019 while they were temporary located at another school.
2 weeks ago, we had a fire in a school building in the cellar in the paper storage room too. Luckily it didnt go beyond the room. But it did damage cables and pipeing.
School was originally built in 1910, that kind of thing was actually not unusual. What was ridiculous was that, in 1950 they STILL didn’t have more than one fire escape. That should not have been permitted.
Bruh looking back at human history it's actually crazy how we still exist like between nukes and lead fuel it's honestly an achievement 😶 And how many diseases where probably made by humans in a lab but got out 💀🤦🏾♂️
I was at an Australian university in 2001-2005, in a building built in the 1960s that was 11 floors high. It had no fire alarm, sub standard fire doors to the escape stairs, and the local fire department had no trucks that could reach higher than the 4th floor. I was in a few fire folks, and it took far too long to get down from the 11 th floor. Basically, anyone above the 5th floor would die of smoke inhalation or worse. It wasn't until an incident at the university, in that very building - not a fire - that an alarm and sprinkler system was installed. So, a school built in 1910? Yeah, it gets a (small) pass
The fact that so many reforms occurred, and yet still failed to recognize the danger of grandfathering older building from retrofitting is a tragedy of the highest order. Grandfathering works for simple rules of conduct but when you're dealing with safety regulations, their should be NO exceptions. Safety should always be the #1 priority, every time. May all who lost their lives rest in piece.
This! It is crazy that fire codes would ever be "grandfathered." Maybe a reasonable period for the changes to be made. Grandfathering should never be in regards to safety issues, only for stuff like zoning (say a business built in an area that is now only for residential use, or maybe hallways that are to narrow to meet handicap code.)
@PlasmaStorm73 [N5EVV] That's the unfortunate trade off. Difficult decisions to balance the need of safety with the massive student body that needs to be accounted for. How a plan could've been implemented before a disaster like that is far too complicated an issue to be answered in the comments of a RUclips video. It's a notion of folly. All I know, is that grandfathering those old buildings was NOT the long term solution to the issue. I just wish it was remedied without the lost of human life being the spurring action. But sometimes, that is what it takes.
@PlasmaStorm73 [N5EVV] The same way that they were forced to deal with all those children with no school because their school burned down. Which was to temporarily put their students in other schools in the area. Have 1 school at a time do this, and it doesn't take that long until all the schools are up to code. The money is an issue--sadly politicians don't care about children, because they don't vote. I guess potentially they got insurance money to help build the new school because the old one burned, but not enough to completely pay for the cost of the new school. It's usually cheaper to pay for renovations up front, than to pay to completely rebuild after a tragedy.
It seems like a few of those code violations could of remedied pretty easily. Sealing off the windows above the doors, and lowering the fire extinguishers so everyone can reach them. Over the summer they could of updated the alarm systems.
@@TheRealChristopherB Its not a long-term solution, but rebuilding entire cities every time new safety features are discovered and implemented would likely cost even more lives over time-from underfunded police and fire departments and unbuilt hospitals, not to mention the attrition rate of poverty in a locale that depresses the economy in order to constantly retrofit and rebuild every building. I agree that grandfather clauses for public buildings should not have been maintained for so long, and that schools of all places should be prioritized over most other public buildings regardless of age, but most people in the comment section are not even acknowledging what the trade-offs entail, and assuming any remotely dissenting opinion on the matter is due to callous greed or corruption.
I first heard about this from my father, who was a school aged boy at the time this happened. Even though he wasn't in the school, it rocked the entire immigrant community.
I went to school and later taught in some buildings that in retrospect, were tragedies waiting to happen. The old wooden interiors are beautiful to look at if properly maintained or renovated, but are no places for 1,000+ students! RIP to all those souls lost on that tragic day. May God bless those sisters who put their students first.
A fire safety film titled “Our Obligation” produced by the LAFD uses nearly all of the same details in the fire at this school (though they claim that the school depicted is not OLA, it’s pretty clear it is)
It seems the main problem was that those that were aware of the fire didn't alert others that needed to know. How hard is it to shout "Fire" ? It seems that even faced with such extreme danger the decision of what to do had to be ceeded to the Principal. It is a ludicrous attitude to trust the hierarchy to make all decisions, people need to understand that there are incidents where time is of the essence and the people seeing a problem arise need to be able to make the decisions. To think this is a thing of the past would be wrong, this sort of attitude still persists as some of those in power want to hold on to every bit of power even if it is to the detriment of the safety of others.
Im from the UK, a few years ago after a dream that felt more real than it should, I did my research and come across this disaster. It is absolutely heart breaking and my heart goes out to every family member and child that lost somebody.
It seems that everyone of a certain age in the Chicago area has met someone who was in this fire or has a friend or sibling who was. It had a huge emotional impact on a generation.
One thing not mentioned here is that it was a very cold day. I think the temperature was about 12° F. Cold conditions are also very dry conditions. Cold weather fires are fairly common. I am sure this made the situation that much worse. This happened before I was born and long before I moved to Chicago. But the ghost of that cold December day 66 years ago abides in this city to this day.
I was just wondering if you'd ever cover this. Well done, you explained it very well. I think you could do a very good video on the Bath School disaster of 1927 as well.
Thank you for covering this fire. My family is from Chicago. This happened in the old neighborhood when my dad and my aunty were school aged. They went to the public school across town but my great uncle was one of the people who saw the smoke from home and ran to the school to help rescue kids that day. I grew up hearing the story but learned so much more from your video. Thank you for documenting these historical events and the people involved so we may never forget their stories.
I lived in Chicago for 25 years. while working at a bank years back, one of our regulars was a gal that survived this fire! The poor lady was BADLY scarred, missing an ear, etc. but she had the best attitude and outlook on life I've ever seen!! She and I got to be on a first name basis as she came into the bank a few times a month. My heart went out to her; I had trouble fathoming her great personality after such a horrific childhood tragedy. She was 9 when the fire broke out in `58. She lost her little sister in it too. I eventually moved back home to NE., but received word this gal had passed away--my old boss called me to let me know. I dropped my work/plans and flew back for her funeral. They were short one pallbearer, and I asked if I could fill in. The family was fine with it! And I was only too proud to do so. I will remember that lady for the rest of my life. May she RIP.
that's incredible
An amazing lady like her lacked pallbearer? It crushed me when this happened to my uncle... like no one cared. Somehow this information has lessened the pain. Thank you for sharing.
You did good👍!!!
Small world! To believe she’s now with the sister he tragically lost. Rest in peace to both of them. Amazing you had the opportunity to meet this person
I literally spit out my soup when I read that you offered to be a pallbearer because I began sobbing. You’re a good soul.
Props to the two teachers who took action to save the children despite being told to "tell the principal" first. What a ludicrus rule.
People do not think for themselves. I sprained my ankle at work and had to go to the hospital. One of the team leads wanted me to call my boss and ask to leave TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL. Ummm no it's my medical emergency and I'll do what's best for my health.
I agree! Did they think the fire would take a quick TimeOut while the principal was informed??
@Nojuan Atall Right! If there was ever a moment to act 1st and speak later I would say that would qualify
And ludicrous even
patriarchy is a bitch.
"There are no new lessons to learn here, only old ones." It's incredible how accurate that remark was. Fires and disasters don't avoid buildings because they were grandfathered in. Sadly, 90+ people died in the spirit of pinching pennies
The statement is correct.....all of the causes of the disaster were already known and were part of building codes. The fact that cities were not using these lessons and codes is what caused the issue. If there is any new lesson to learn it would be to actually apply previous lessons learned to all buildings regardless of age.
It's unfortunately unsurprising that quote is accurate. It honestly seems like half of the time he's covered an indoor fire disaster, at least one of the fire doors is locked and ends up getting people killed.
Saving money was only part of the problem.
First there was the dumb rule nobody is allowed to turn on the fire alarm except the principal. This caused the first nun/teacher to wander around looking for him before evacuating her class, plus she never turned on the fire alarm.
Second it appears none of the first teacher/nuns to realize the building was on fire knocked on any other classroom doors during the evacuation. Every class found out the building was on fire when they saw smoke of flames, so evacuated. Then the next class only found out when they saw smoke or flames enter their classroom, then evacuated. Then the next class only found out when they saw smoke of flames entering their classroom, so evacuated. Finally much later the fire alarm was sounded. I would have sounded the alarm ASAP. They can reprimand or fire me after the children are out.
Third the fire escape was locked. None of the teachers had a key to unlock it. Maybe, only the principal did, and he was outside on the ground. If every teacher had had a fire escape key, they could have evacuated much sooner.
Fourth the courtyard was blocked by metal bars.
Fifth the teacher/nuns had no clue what was the best thing to do in the event of a fire. Other than tell the principal and ask him what to do, but he wasn't available. So the teachers had to guess. Some guessed wrong and doomed themselves and their students. Plus most likely the children didn't know what to do in the event of a fire, other than to follow their teacher. So any who were separated wouldn't know where to go or what to do. They probably hadn't been told about the fire escapes.
If they had conducted even one fire and evacuation drill at any time, they most likely would have discovered many of not all of these problems, and the teachers and children would know what to do in the event of a fire. But, the one thing a fire drill would not have solved is the principal being a retarded control freak who didn't trust and of the teachers. In a drill he would have been standing right there to sound the alarm and unlock fire escapes. He wasn't smart enough to think about if he wasn't there when the fire occurred.
So really they would need a different principal and then conduct a fire and evacuation drill. If they had done this, likely every person would have survived this fire, and it wouldn't have cost a dollar.
On the flip side, they could have had a brand new school, with all the new safety codes, and still had 100 kids die. As dumb and as much of a control freak as this principal was, he may have locked all the fire exits and turned off the fire alarm's power from his office. If there was a sprinkler system in the new school, he may have padlocked the water to it off. Then told the teachers if there is a fire to notify him and he would turn the alarm power back on, and turn the sprinkler water back on, and unlock the fire exits. Then he will give instructions to every teacher in every class on which exits to use and where to go. If this sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration, too dumb to be plausible, just look at what did happen. It isn't much different.
@PlasmaStorm73 [N5EVV] Yes I agree with that. But I doubt anyone could have convinced this principal to leave them always unlocked. Maybe get locked from the outside, but always will open from the inside fire escape doors. But new locks would cost a little money and the guy running the place was a moron.
It's even more accurate when you remember that the Collinwood School fire happened just two years prior to the school being built and yet it was built with most of the same problems and had the same overcrowding of students in the name of penny pinching
Holy shit I’ve been waiting for this one. My grandpa was one of the responding firefighters, talking about it made him cry. RIP John M. Smullen 1926-2019
Just a fyi, there is nothing "Holy" about that.
@@Joanla1954? They were literally just expressing their shock that this story was actually spoken on? What was your comment for?
@@Joanla1954must be evil to comment that on a post about someones passed grandpa
Ty to your hero grandfather !! My mom was a survivor so we have a spiritual connection. My ❤goes out to you My friend.
Thank you to your grandpa for courageously rescuing those children. I had a teacher, in high school, who survived that tragedy. She was a very tough teacher, but she had a heart of gold. I had her for honors geometry class.
Salute to your grandpa, and to all those who risked their lives to help save others without a second thought. They ARE the true heroes!!
If you're wondering why older school buildings were given that grandfather clause, consider how many children were in each of these classrooms. Two things had happened that meant schools in American cities were bursting at the seams: people had been moving from towns to cities in large numbers, and the big cohorts of the Baby Boom generation were now of school age. The population of school aged kids had grown faster than the construction of new schools could match. If city authorities had closed the older schools temporarily to bring them up to code, they would have had to scramble to find places for those kids to go to school. Unfortunately they decided to deal with that problem by allowing the older schools to stay open and hoping for the best. And the students of OLA ended up paying the price for that bad decision.
Do you think there would have been enough time during the summer to rebuild the school?
Even in the UK in the 1990s, my comprehensive school (pupils aged 11-16) had 'classrooms' in wooden sheds because the main school building couldn't cope. The main building was a straight line with three levels, a ground floor and two upper floors, and with two staircases, one near either end. Some of the classrooms in the top-middle of the building could only be reached by going through an adjacent classroom, with no direct access to a staircase. There was a very good fire alarm and there were fire escapes, but I remember it always felt strange to be in one of those middle rooms. It was about 50 years old when they demolished it and built a new school on the same site, I don't think there was ever a fire though, thankfully. But I'm sure some corners were cut to try and cope with capacity demands.
Thank you for giving this wider perspective
@@bobblebardsley Portakabins themselves may have been (and sometimes continue) to be a stopgap (sometimes lasting decades) but they're at least up to standard in terms of fire safety. Find me a school that's never had temporary classrooms. In any case they exit directly to ground level so there's that.
I mean basically, it boils down to "we don't feel like updating these buildings and finding some temporary place for these kids, we are TIIIIRED".
Sorry, the excuse doesn't fly. Yes it would have been difficult, but being a city planner/leader should be a difficult job. It's not just some position to satiate the egos of narcissists.
I was born in Chicago a couple of years after this, but have now ended up in Georgia. In a nearby town is a 2-story house built by a man who survived the Chicago fire of 1871. He designed it so that there is a quick way to the outside from every single room in the home, (upstairs onto a balcony). The windows are tall and the bottom is low to the floor, almost like a door. The house never burned, but this man was comforted by knowing his family wouldn’t be trapped.
Good for him!
Yeah, that's trauma for you 😢
One of the teaching nuns who died was found lying over top of her students in a clear attempt to shield them from the fire. This was such a horrific tragedy that could have been prevented.
Out of all those who were scarred or died in this catastrophe, I feel particularly touched by Sister Mary Devine, who tried so hard to do right by her students, and Beverly Burda, who perished anyway. How can one teacher be expected to keep track of _sixty-two_ children under _normal_ circumstances, let alone in the chaos of an emergency? Poor Beverly's fate must have haunted Sister Devine for the rest of her life.
And Devine had a very long life. She died in 2006 at the age of 100.
It was a consequence of the Baby Boom. The grandfather clause and the number of ankle-biters were both directly tied to the boom. It's another reason to promote birth control, access to abortion, and family planning services.
@@petergray7576oh my gosh, amazing! ❤
Why the F*CK didnt the other two teachers warn the other classrooms? And why did they wait until AFTER they had escaped to pull the fire alarm? So selfish”
@@lingricen8077 They didn't just have time. By the time they realized they needed to get out, they barely had enough time to do it themselves. And the fire alarm could only be pulled by the principal or janitor, the latter of whom was helping the kids in the annex escape by getting the fire escape open.
Fire spreads remarkably fast when unimpeded. Go watch the reproduction of the Station Nightclub fire, for example and see how long it takes for flashover to happen...
I personally know a survivor of this fire. Sixty years later, he will say, yes, he was there, he was a little child, but he absolutely cannot talk about what he saw that day. Still traumatized by it..
Does he go to the OLA memorial yearly? That might help.
Yeah i would be too. Damn.
In 1958 I was in the 3rd grade at Columbia Elementary School in Champaign, IL, a school built in 1906 and suffering from some of the same deficiencies as Our Lady. Following the disaster, we had weekly fire drills (and it was a very cold, wet winter) requiring us to go outside. The following summer the school was ungraded with new doors, alarms and sprinklers. All this made the tragedy something I've never forgotten. Columbia remained in use for the rest of the 20th century and the building still is in use.
My elementary school was built in 1923. It had a grand staircase in the middle which, while beautiful, was a fire hazard. It would have acted like an enormous chimney, sucking smoke and flames up to the upper floors. Sometime in the 1980s, fire codes were upgraded and the staircase was enclosed with a firewall. The school district is lucky it didn't learn the hard way, I suppose.
I feel bad for that teacher who waited till her class was empty before she left but still missed someone.
Do you think the teacher was trampling her and didn't realize it in the smoke, and that's the reason she didn't see her?
I do too but she can certainly look in the mirror and see a woman of valor.
@@lionorlying4212 Survivors talked of how they could see very little due to the thick black smoke. The windows were also high off the floor, so many smaller children couldn't reach. All those kids frantically trying to get out those windows at once probably caused a huge pileup.
Yeah. She tried so hard to protect her students, I don't want to think about how awful she must've felt when she realized she was one short.
@@stephw1702 do you think it would have hurt the child if the teacher was stepping on her?
It wasn’t just the “grandfathering” of the structure that killed those people, but decisions made by the school authorities such as locking a fire escape door from the outside, giving only one person the ability to sound the alarm and locking the gate across the courtyard. These decisions show a lack of concern for safety.
Not so different from what some US politicians want to turn US schools into now, demanding locked doors, all entrances (and hence all exits) blocked etc to keep gunmen out. Rather lock the children inside a fire trap to reduce the number of gun death in case of a school shooting than do something about the guns to stop the shootings from happening in the first place.
And if ur in doubt, Im not American. And we non Americans look at the sh*tshow over there in horror. We have gun laws. We also have zero mass shootings and very few shooting in general. Not to mention FAR less murders, suicides and violent crimes per capita than u guys. But no, they still claim, its not the guns, even tho all the evidence 100% shows, thats the difference. So lock the kids up in their schools, so a fire can kill them all as a "solution".
A tragedy as great as this one always has multiple grave mistakes involved. So many things have to go wrong at the same time for so many lives to be lost.
It also sounds like there was a fire door on the first floor, but not on the second? If that was the case, the extra time might have made a huge difference.
It's the same with other places such as theatres, nightclubs, and factories where other horrific fires have occurred. It's all about control, trying to keep people inside to keep them from sneaking out without paying or to keep workers at their machines. In this case, I'm sure they wanted to ensure students stayed inside and didn't sneak out for a smoke or to play hooky. The owners' or managers' desire for control and not losing profits was more important than safety and peoples' lives.
I legitimately wouldn't be surprised to go back through all of the indoor fire disasters this channel has covered thus far, count up the number of instances in which the fire exits alone are locked, and find the result to be half or more of said disasters Capitalism only cares about profit, not human safety or lives after all. [/waits for someone to completely miss the point and think I'm endorsing communism wholeheartedly]
Criticism of how the Cook County Coroner (an elected position whose office had become a dumping ground for patronage) handled the inquest eventually led to it being replaced by the Medical Examiner's office (an appointed position that is staffed by medical professionals).
Thanks for the info.
Factoid: Jonathan Cain (keyboardist for the band Journey) was a 3rd grader at the school. As he was on the first floor, he and his class were able to escape. He writes about the impact the fire had on him throughout his life in his 2018 autobiography - "Don't Stop Believing"
Wow 😮
😮😱😳😲😯😮.
His real name is Jonathan Friga.
I remember a woman talking about how she missed the fire by faking a stomach ache. She got into it with one of the crossing guards. Who was also a student. She didn't want to get in trouble so she's faking illness. Her older sister and the crossing guard was killed in the fire.
If that's meant to be funny i laughed😂
A lot of disasters have those little twists of fate. I watched an episode of Mayday: Air Disaster recently where a guy on a flight moved to the back of the plane so he could smoke (it was the 70s) and the plane crashed and the section he had been in was obliterated. Smoking saved his life.
@@MakerInMotion I like that show, where did you watch it?
@@travismiller4320 There's a channel for it here on youtube. Just older episodes though. They licensed out the episodes that don't run on cable anymore. The channel is just called Mayday: Air Disaster. There's a channel called Wonder that also has some episodes.
@@MakerInMotion thanks
My grandmother was an ER nurse and took care of the children from this devastating event. She had awful PTSD from it. Her brother in law was a fire chief and became very invested in fire alarm systems and educating his district about them bc of my gran’s trauma.
I first learned about this fire from the book To Sleep with the Angels. A particularly agonizing tragedy in several ways. You handled it with your typical sensitivity. Great video.
I've read it. An excellent book.
I've read it too. As soon as I saw the video title I remembered. It's really a thorough telling and very readable. Especially I remember how it covered the way the fire devastated the neighborhood, which another commentor has mentioned.
I read that book last year. Heartbreaking. :(
I’ve read it too and cried the whole way through it. Some families lost all their children.
Read it too.
My grandfather was a Chicago Firefighter who responded. It affected him deeply and he never discussed it. The men of the fire companies that were there were disbanded and sent to other locations. The neighborhood was virtually abandoned due to the grief of witnesses and survivors.
There was accusatory talk on the street that the nuns had forced the children to kneel and pray, delaying the rescue. As grammar school students, we boys would organize and pledge to lead each other out of school if our teachers hesitated. This may have contributed to my own pathological mistrust of authority figures.
My grandparents were looking to transfer my mom to Our Lady of Angels, but the fire happened before the paperwork was finished. My grandmother insisted up to her dying day that the nuns made the children stay at their desks and pray with the only ones who survived being the kids who disobeyed and ran. She was iffy about Catholic schools ever since the fire and kick up a fuss any time I might've transferred to one.
My mother was a girl at another Catholic school in Chicago at the time and she instilled in me this distrust by telling me this story a few times. There was another story of nuns who tied children together on a boat wreck instead of letting each save themself that also left a mark. Grateful to this day for her wisdom.
It is not an accusation but a fact. The children who disobeyed the nuns in two of the classrooms and survived told what happened. One classroom that was further away from the fire could have had most of the students saved if they had left the classroom instead. Because they stayed almost the entire class died from smoke inhalation while they were mostly still seated at their desks.The other classrooms were a different story. Once the fire became worse they tried to save the students. Unfortunately the only way out was through the windows. Which were too high off the ground. One father saved many in his sons classroom. Unfortunately his son was too scared to jump. And when he came back with a ladder ,he watched in horror as the classroom flashed over with his son and the rest of the students dying instantly.
Don't believe that for a second. People nowadays are always looking for anti-religion lies to spread. It's not working.
Well, it's not like Catholics haven't gone OUT OF THEIR WAY to provide more than ample evidence that they don't care about children's lives when sh*t hits the fan. It's THE authority in charge to do everything or take care of countermeasures and NOBODY else... from the fire extinguishers secured out of children's reach to locking fire escapes to setting up a fire alarm that ONLY one person in the ENTIRE SCHOOL could operate...
Tell me again about all this moral fiber the Christians are so proud of... I just don't see it. ;o)
My mom told me she saw this on the news since she lived in the Chicago area. She said she wept bitterly since she was the same age as the students at the time.
Many of the children in Chicago, felt a lot of sadness during that time. I know I did and carved a cross on my wooden desk at school. The cross was for the lives of the children that lost their lives.
I was several generations later, but there's not a kid who has attended school in the Chicago area who hasn't heard of the OLA fire.
Shut up
I never learned about it in classes or from teachers in school in Chicago usually, but from older adults telling us about it outside of school. or the very rare Chicago history class that a few schools have. it's still pretty common knowledge among older adults.
We were never taught about it, but I learned about it when I was young on my own. Should note my elementary/middle school was also built in the early 20th century and while it has undergone multiple renovations since I graduated, I thought about it a time or two and if it could happen to us
Grew up on Chicago's north side heard about from my parents who were the same age as the victims they attended Chicago area schools. WTTW channel 11 used to do special tv show every year on the anniversary of the fire too
Which makes me sad for my hometown. Cleveland, OH had the worst school fire in the history of the US (175 dead) in 1908, and barely anyone knows about it.
For a short time, my dad left home. I really don’t know why, I was just a kid. But then this happened and then he came back. He always said that it was a gut punch to him and made him realize what was important.
Sometimes I look around a building and think "if this catches on fire we're all dead."
Didn't ask
completely agree, theres a few nightclubs in london I've been to where I couldnt have fun because I was too busy staying back out of the way of crowds and watching the ceilings for smoke. Some places are just set up so that you would have a massive crowd crush in the dark. I usually ask where the fire exits are when I enter a busy building like that
@@BenoitRAG3 I did though
Same but also with shooting, earthquakes, floods and basically Andy life threatening situation-
I've already planned an escape route at work just in case anything happens👀
this fire was the reason that basically every school I attended in Chicago was made of concrete, brick, and asbestos, and our fire drills were always taken extremely seriously and done frequently. every school I attended even took false fire alarms very seriously. even workplace fire drills are really important here.
we don't always learn about this fire in school even in Chicago, but a lot of older Chicago natives definitely remember this, or their at least their parents telling them about it.
"concrete, brick, and asbestos"
Suburbs too. I went to a 1960s vintage school in Palatine in the 80s. That is a perfect description, well, until they were forced to remove the asbestos. And those fire alarms were LOUD. Scared me a LOT as a kid.
Fire drills in my school were such a joke. We had advanced notice and they were only done in first period while were in our homeroom class which was the class we were supposed to line up with. We’d orderly file out, do a count, and file back in. Someone pulled the fire alarm between classes and it was complete madness. We had no idea what to do if we weren’t in homeroom, so most of the day. It’s just a good thing we never had a fire. People never learn.
@@AddieDirectsTV the older I get, the more I'm convinced that the asbestos thing is often a scare for the benefit of extremely expensive removal.
It's been shown, leave it alone assuming it's not coming apart, and it's fine. We owned a place that had it for 60 years. Linoleum. Armstrong Montina. 70% asbestos, plus the horrible black tar mastic. There's ads that show it. Easy to find.
Trust me. We tried. It wants no part of coming up. Going right over it is safest. At least w a rug. Nothing that'll disturb it.
Of all the people who lived there, the oldest were well into their 80s or 90s, nobody died of anything asbestos/lung related.
They have glorious floating, waterproof floors that you don't even have to make a hole in. They work, too.
Trust me, tho, it ain't coming up. It went in in 1965. Grammy had 5 kids, a husband and a dog. Floor was barely starting to wear.
Floor we put in in 1990s was trashed by that point, just saying.
Thanks for covering this one! My grandfather was with the Chicago Fire Department and responded to this tragedy (as well as the Chicago Green Hornet Streetcar Disaster which you also covered a while ago). He never recovered from the trauma of what he witnessed at these two events.
My dad witnessed a fire in a New Orleans high rise that had a beauty salon near the top. I can't remember if the fire started there but women were hanging out of windows and falling/jumping to their deaths. I was a toddler so I only heard about it decades later. and not real clear on the details. My dad never talked about it, but from that point on insisted that we never stay above the second or third floor in hotels. I can't imagine what your grandfather saw and dealt with. 💔
@@csc7225 3rd floor is pushing it. I wouldn't do 2nd.
I lived in a 21-floor student accommodation building for three years where there was no way of escape should the main staircase become inaccessible. Additionally, the evacuation procedure for disabled residents was for them to move to a difficult to find 'safe room' on each floor, the door to which was usually locked, and call 999 to tell the dispatcher where they were. Bearing in mind the corridors of this building were virtually identical, the accomodation block was on top of a multi-storey carpark, and the fact that disabled residents were regularly told that they were 'exempt' from fire drills, I dread to think what would have happened if there was ever an emergency situation. I'd say I have no idea how the building passed fire safety inspections, but in truth I know it was because of loopholes similar to the ones in this case - made all the worse by this occurring currently.
I attended the reunion of my late Father’s WW2 unit the Summer ‘The Towering Inferno’ came out. Staying in a high risk hotel, I want a happy camper; the fact I didn’t like heights didn’t help me.
That's terrifying!
Grenfell fire.
@@jamessimms415 Yeah, that's why I HATE tall buildings and the thought of being any higher than a 3rd or 4th floor creeps me out. Why do humans have to keep pushing boundaries faster than our safety systems can keep up? I really wouldn't want to be higher than a second floor if it was up to me, and my ideal home is basically a concrete or solid stone (like carved into a mountain) bunker. The only wood would be in furniture, the only cloth a combination of furniture, my clothing, curtains, a few spot rugs, spare bedding, and whatever I might have on hand for sewing in this fictional scenario. Concrete and stone don't burn well, and my hatred of wall-to-wall carpet might help me. Although my love of books would counter that somewhat. Of course it means I'd have to stash all the highly flammable stuff, aside from some cooking oil, like lamp oil, matches, candles, oil paint, turpentine, polishing oil and wood varnish in outbuildings, but I'm okay with that. My aunt and uncle lost their home, everything but the clothes on their backs, even their cats. Nothing was salvageable, the fire was that fierce. It was a miracle none of the humans died. A neighbor's house actually blew up- he had a gas leak, apparently, and as a long-time smoker had little sense of smell. They think he woke up, lit his pipe, and BOOM! He survived the explosion but died of his burns a short time later. Also I grew up in Tornado Alley, which was the initial reason I decided I wanted to live in a bunker. Being afraid of my home burning down or blowing up is just an additional reason.
@mildlycornfield sounds like you're in the UK? UK fire safety codes are significantly worse than they are in America. Leaving disabled people in place is standard pretty much everywhere, though, and that's awful.
As a child, I never understood just how important fire drills r. As an adult, I'm always clocking exits.
You bring up a good point. I remember, from a very long time ago, being nonchalant about school fire drills. We really should have been taught about some of these past tragedies. Might have put a dent in our complacency.
So true! I remember them in elementary school!
OLA actually had regular fire drills, but it was always assumed that the central corridor and staircase would remain passable. If just once, someone had asked "What happens if the central hallway is blocked by fire?" perhaps things would have been different.
My cousin Jimmy was killed in that fire. I was only three at the time and as a little kid wondered what happened to Jimmy.
💔🌹
😢🙏🙏
🙏
So sorry of your loss x
So sorry for your loss.
At the time of the fire, I was a high school student in Chicago. One of our classmates lost a sister in that fire. The next day the school principal came on the intercom, and read A E Housman's poem "With Rue, My Heart is Laden." The homework assignment that night was to memorize the poem. His purpose was that every time we recited that poem in later life, it would bring back memories of that lost child, and all the friends and relatives that have gone before us. I'm now approaching 80 in a few months and have recited the poem many, many times.
Man you had my hopes up high when telling about all the children who successfully escaped and I thought that maybe the death toll was only going to be the one poor little girl, but then it crushed my heart when you said that 92 children died! That's so terrible, I can't imagine having been there or having to be the one to remove all those little bodies, or tell the parents that their child didn't make it. I'm a paramedic and I've seen my fair share of bad stuff, but fortunately I've never had to experience anything like that. 😢
173 students, 2 teachers and a rescuer died in the worst school fire in US history. The Collinwood School Fire of 1908, in Cleveland OH. To me, it's incomprehensible to be a parent having to watch your child possibly burn or suffocate without being able to do anything.
The phrase "catch children as they fell" chills.
As the years pass, people are starting to forget this shocking and heartbreaking tragedy. Thanks for helping make sure that it and the children and adults who perished are not forgotten. I was 6 years old and remember the changes made to our school building as a result of the fire.
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it...
There's a book called "To Sleep With the Angels" that I believe is about this fire. Extremely chilling and heartbreaking but informative read.
Wttw channel 11 did a documentary about the fire for a anniversary i think 40th or 50th. Talked to the children that survived and parents still alive that lost and survived children. It was so sad.
The term "shitshow" comes to mind when thinking of this situation. My heart hoes out to the kids lost, injured, and traumatized. This is a nightmare situation for my 37 year old mind. I can't imaging how 10 year old me would deal.
Shit show is good, but cluster f-k is better. These tragedies are so heart breaking, but God never said that life on earth was going to be easy. There will be a grand reunion one day for those God calls His own.
When I was in grade 7 two teens decided to sneak into our school and light the paper room in the basement on fire. We noticed smoke coming through the vents on the third floor and we called the office and not even a minute later an announcement came over the intercom for everyone to evacuate and the fire alarm came on. We all got out safely and the fire was put out but after when we went back into the building we could see black soot covering different parts of the school. We also had to wait outside in the winter for an hour and we did not have our coats. It was a scary time.
Can’t imagine what these poor children went through.
"There are no new lessons to be learned from this fire; only old lessons that tragically went unheeded." Chilling.
And with a frankness that none would from public officials today
Thank you for covering this tragic event. I lived in Akron, Ohio and was 9 years old when this tragedy happened. After this, we had fire drills that consisted of a nun ringing a hand bell in the hallway and us kids forming a line and walking out to the playground. This was before they had fire alarms installed. Over the next few months an alarm system was installed and other upgrades were made.
I have often wondered what happened at that school that day. It really had an impact on me. Thank you again.
I'm an Akronite too but I was born in 2005. The thing you're talking about is called a pull rod fire alarm. What was the name of the Catholic school in Akron?
@@neohistoryfan1014 St Paul, on Brown Street. Sister walked through the hallways ringing a brass hand bell until we got the fire alarm installed.
@@charlenegodard564 My girlfriend used to go to that school. It's very close to Garfield HS. I go to STVM, which is also a grandfathered building with its original fire alarm system from 1972. I won't be surprised if the city of Akron condemns STVM in the future due to it being so outdated. I'm kind of shocked the building didn't have a pull rod fire alarm. The ones built after World War II had automatic fire alarm systems along with the pull rods in the event of a power failure.
My grandmother went to the original Saint Vincent high school in Akron. I believe the only fire alarm in that building at the time was a metal rod with trip gongs attached to it. I think after this fire, it probably got an automatic fire alarm system that was tied in with the fire department and had an actuator switch attached to the metal rod. there's a guy on RUclips called Old School Fire Alarms, and he is based in the Akron area.
My dad is also from Akron. He grew up next to Firestone HS. He went to Saint Sebastian along with his brothers; that school was built in the 40s. it had an IBM automatic fire alarm system with the pull rod and single stroke bells as the fire alarm signals. The nuns were very strict during fire drills and strongly enforced complete silence.
It's like we never learn. The crash bar was invented in 1892 in England. In 1908, the Collinwood School Fire/Lake View School Fire happened which prompted an outcry for better fire safety in schools across the US. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911 demonstrated the importance of not having locked fire exits - which the crash bar is ideal for.
But Our Lady of the Angels was not only in an old building, but also a private school. And typically in the US, laws that are passed for public schools often don't apply to private schools. For example, 33 states ban corporal punishment in public schools, but in 31 of those states the ban doesn't apply to private schools. Somehow Iowa and New Jersey are the only states that applied the ban to private schools as well as public schools.
God Bless you for mentioning the Collinwood School Fire and how that affected layouts in schools (though the doors actually DID open outwards - proven later by digging up the foundation). No one remembers that terrible tragedy anymore.
A guy I dated right after high school was a student at this school. He and his sister both survived!! God bless the over 90 who perished.
For more on this tragedy, I recommend To Sleep with the Angels, by David Cowan and John Kuenster. An excellent read.
Thank you, FH, for covering this one. I had hoped you would, and you did not disappoint. Well done.
Check out angels too soon it's a PBS special
The gravesite shown in this documentary is located at the Queen of heaven cemetery in Hillside Ill, I have relatives buried there, and a couple of months ago while visiting them, I thought of this fire out of nowhere, and those who perished. I was obsessed to find these children and pay my respects, and little did I know a great number of the angels were buried here at Queen of heaven, and some across the street at Our Lady of Mt Carmel cemetery, along with the three nuns who lost their lives trying to save these children, Sr Mary Claire Terese Champagne, Sr Mary Seraphica Kelley, and Sr Mary St Canice. The gravesite area at Queen fo Heaven cemetery is named " Shrine of the Holy Innocents", how fitting. I visit the kids whenever I am there visiting my family. I pray for them and their families, such a tragedy. I can't even imagine sending my kids to school, and to have to deal with what these parents, police, firemen et al had to deal with. If you are ever in the area, you should stop by and say a little prayer.
I thought of this fire out of nowhere also, about 10 years ago. As I was 7 at the time it happened, I thought it was something I had just imagined because none of my friends remembered it. It's horrifying to me to know that this really happened.
Thank you for highlighting our tragedies that have often gone overlooked. From the Green Hornet to the Eastland to this one, you help keep the memories of our victims alive
Former Chicagoan here. After seeing your videos on the S.S. Eastland disaster and the Iroquois Theater fire, I was wondering if you'd ever cover this one. Well written, researched and narrated as always!
I grew up not far from this. My dad was an elementary school student nearby and this had a lasting impact on him and a lot of other people.
man, chicago really has a bad history with fires...
I have a book just about Chicago fires that actually mostly skips the famous one in 1871 to concentrate on all of the others. It’s not a short book.
@@kathyastrom1315 May I ask for the title and author if you have a moment? Much appreciated! 🥰
I find it even more sad, that the Peshtigo fire happened the same day(s) as the famous 1871 Chicago fire and was far more deadly, yet its been all but forgotten.
@@dfuher968 I believe FH did a video on the Peshtigo fire a few months back!
And serial killers Gacy, Hh holmes, Richard speak, chicago rippers…
How ridiculous that only the principal was allowed to sound the alarm. Gotta preserve the hierarchy, even if it costs a hundred lives!
Just one other thing to note about the basic design of the school: That style with the raised basement or ground level or whatever you want to call it, was particularly popular for school buildings in the US back in the first half of the 20th century. Going into that would be a huge digression into architectural styles and whatnot.
(there are particular people and more standardized layouts and whatnot depending on where and when you are actually looking and it turns into a rabbit hole. I fell into that hole because for years I lived in an old school building that had been renovated into apartments and is on the National Register of Historic Places.)
I’ve lived in Chicago my entire life, this tragedy was never far from peoples minds when it came to fire drills in schools and safety. I found out 10 years ago that the original Chicago Fire and Police Department investigation files have been missing for almost 35 years now.
This is so clearly narrated and boy does it fit the channel name!
My grandmother worked at this school, but was out that day on maternity leave / also pregnant, when the fire happened. According to my mom, she was screaming and crying at the TV for the nuns to stop praying and to tie the boys pants together into a rope to allow them to escape.
My grandmother ended up losing the unborn baby due to the stress of the sheer amount of anguish and guilt she felt.
An absolute tragedy :(
How did your grandmother know what the nuns were doing or not doing?
Always extra tragic to hear about child perishing those who are supposed to have their whole lives in front if them but are cut tragically short RIP to all the victim of those horror tragedy
This was a horrifying tragedy and what happened to those kids was criminally negligent by so many people it's hard to say who bore the most blame. That neighborhood was probably never the same. RIP to the victims who never got to live their lives.
No, the neighborhood was never the same. People began moving else where and the area changed. I met a man, whose cousin was in that fire.
92 children?! Oh my goodness. Devastating! So sad 😭
An almost inconceivable number of lives shattered. Everyone for miles would have known one of the dead or their family.
Indeed.😔
If u think, thats bad, look up the Aberfan disaster. Sadly, theres plenty of avoidable tragedies to go around.
RIP to the poor children lost in both disasters and so many others.
@@dfuher968• That was horrible too.
it really destroyed the neighborhood and I heard that many parents moved away because it was so devastating. I wonder if WBEZ has covered it.
When I was in fire inspector class I read the book "To Sleep with the Angels" which was written about this tragedy. It was a very well written book and I suggest others read it.
One of the authors was a firebug.
My grandfather was a captain of the Chicago Fire Department during this incident, he passed away 2 years ago but he said this tragedy was the one that always stuck with him. Rip Grandpa. 🚒
The first thing the janitor SHOULD have done was alert at least one nearby classroom of the fire so they could alert others of it before he left for the other building.
Or turn 9n the fire alarm
@PlasmaStorm73 [N5EVV] screw the cide lives on the line
@@paulrasmussen8953 That’s all well and good for you to say, but the reason why you have codes and rules during an emergency is so that you have rehearsed thinking. Panic can set in and you don’t think logically, so if you have a plan, at least you aren’t frozen or dithering about your next move. It’s not his fault that the code was poorly conceived. Easy to look back with hindsight, isn’t it?
@@Unownshipper instill would not care. Its a fucking fire
Easy to Monday morning quarterback. Have you ever been in a crisis where you have to make instant decisions? This man is a hero. He alerted rectory to call fire department, and risked his own life ran into the building and saved many children.
I taught in Chicago in the 70’s. Once the fire alarm went off when I was on lunchroom duty. We evacuated, crossing 25 ft, down 4 steps, out the door to the sidewalk, down the sidewalk probably 100 ft. By the time I was counting noses, the fire trucks were already there & had the hoses off the trucks!!
- what had happened was: The Principal saw a big student accidentally whack the fire alarm w his shoulder. He instantly picked up the wall phone located right beside the fire alarm, to let them know the call was accidental. “We’ve already rolled the trucks.” They had rolled in less than a min.!!
The Principal apologized. Fire Response: “We’d rather come to 1,000 false alarms than one real fire at a school!” The efficiency & focus of those Chicago firemen still gives me chills 50+ years later!!
SO happy you surpassed a mil. If any channel deserves it, its your channel.
What shocks me the most about this channel is how many events such as this one took place and I had no idea. Shocking events.
My dad was 12 that year and would have been in one of the affected classrooms where many died, IF his parents had lived in that parish. He was in another 1 and attended schools there. I asked him about Lady of Angels, and he didn't remember much. As a side note, I had a chemistry teacher at my Catholic HS in 1986 to 1988 who was always yelling at us kids to not have anything blocking any pathways in the classroom, always saying it was a fire hazard. I don't know if it was due to being a chem classroom, or if perhaps she had been at the Lady of Angels parish all those years before, and was very much into fire safety for a damned good reason! She was like 60ish years old then.
Thank you for doing this one. My mother was home in Chicago with two young children who, if a little older, could have gone to this school. She was always devastated by this tragedy and was always watchful for fire exits and fire safety.
I remember this fire very well. I was 8 years old and attending a Catholic grade school not that far away from OLA.
There was a great deal of talk about this for months afterward.
Horrible tragedy. I learned about it when reading Jonathan Cain's - the keyboardist and one of the songwriters in Journey - autobiography. He was one of the survivors from that horrible fire.
Very sad, and like the present day situations .... we can not forget our history and the lessons we've learned from it... may those unfortunate one's rest in peace
@Mandy Lee would it hurt if a female trampled someone?
@@skelly4998🤔 yes, being trampled by anyone or thing would hurt.
It wouldn't hurt the person doing the trampling if that's what you mean.
@@MandyLeeRain I don't think it would hurt if a woman stepped on anyone.
I say it frequently, and will always do so: Thank you for being so clear and not having the music at a level louder than your voice!
Before I even watch this, thank you for covering. I didn't hear about this fire until attending a family wedding near the Chicago Merchandise Mart. At the time, the Mart had a large display of Chicago history including story of Our Lady fire. Right then, my father told me with tears in his eyes and anger in his voice that his cousin survived but had permanent burn scars. Not sure how he escaped because according to his account, the nuns told the children to stay under their desks to pray and wait for help.
Some nuns, not all. There was a man, that went to the school, and saw his son in the window. His son, threw an object out to his Dad, he left the window and died. The son was in a classroom where a lot of kids died. Perhaps, one of classrooms where they were told to pray.
I had a teacher, in high school, that survived that tragedy. She was about 9 or 10 when it happened. She was a very tough teacher, but she had a heart of gold. I grew up about a mile from Our Lady Of The Angels’ School. I had gone through Catholic Schools from 5th to 12th. I’d give ANYTHING to be able to go back to Our Lady Of Grace, and Madonna High School.
I hope that the children and teachers are resting peacefully in their eternal slumbers.
We appreciate content like this. Keep up the good work.
I remember this happening as I was in a similar school a few miles away. This did bring about many reforms in building codes but it's been an uphill battle nationally against grandfather clauses. Now there is a push by some to go backwards and decrease the amount of fire exits to as little as one to limit access for school shooters. We can't have that
Such a tragedy on so many levels. While the cause of the fire is unknown, I've heard that it may have been intentionally started by a disgruntled student (or former student). If that's true, then that makes this an even more heartbreaking story than it already is!
Yes just awful!
"then that makes this an even more heartbreaking story than it already is"
Why in God's name would that make it worse?
@Varangian_af_Scaniae because if someone did intentionally start this, now over 90 people are victims of a malicious crime…
@@alexandergilles8583 That doesn't make it more heartbreaking. The people died either way!
I believe the rumor is that there was a troubled student who most likely started the fire in one of the wastepaper baskets. And while it's reprehensible to start a fire, he was still a kid and would have had no idea the school was a deadly firetrap. If that story is true, I can only imagine how terrible it must have been for him when what was probably a bit of childish mischief resulted in the deaths of so many of his friends and classmates.
The real tragedy was not caused by the fire starting, but by the complete lack of preparation that helped the fire spread and kept the students from escaping.
My good friends dad was in third grade at the time, he was the door holder during the fire. His job was to hold the door until the 4th grade door holder was there to hold it for the 5th graders. He remembers waiting for the 4th graders and them never Comming. He was eventually rushed out by a nun working there. It really was a tragedy.
93 children died? That's not a tragedy, it's a catastrophe! How was it that those who first discovered the fire fail to raise the alarm to the rest of the classes? They should have evacuated immediately. I can't even begin to imagine the grief the families of those poor children had to endure. May their souls rest in peace.
Absolutely appalling yes, alarm systems came in far too late as well. God rest their little souls 🇬🇧🙏☘️
I thought the same at first, but then I realised - they did, what they were instructed to do. The appaling requirement of having to find and notify the principal first, and only he could pull the fire alarm, was really at fault. In hindsight, yes, they should absolutely have immidiately started evacuating their class and simultaniously warned the other classes to do the same, but when they had clear orders on what to do in case of a fire, its understandable, that they followed their standing orders. The teachers were heroic in trying to save the children, they should not have any blame on them for a disastrously poor "system" in case of fire or for the city failing to implement the mandated fire safety features.
I know! If I was a teacher I’d alert the other rooms or at least one
The Nuns were instructed to wait for help from the firemen. At least one Nun didn't wait and got her students out.
Unfortunately the first time one of the nuns pulled the fire alarm it did not go off.
I always wonder about disasters like these, ones potentially caused by a person being careless. I wonder if they'd spent years thinking about this, feeling an incredible amount of guilt - or did they only feel relief and contentment that they weren't caught, thoughtless of the lives that were affected?
If the person who started the fire knows he did I hope he lives with serious guilt
Actually,there was a belief that a student started the fire deliberately. There were never charges brought since he was only 12 or 13 yo. He grew up to be a troubled soul.
Probably a little of both, I think most people who commit a crime and get away with it feel relief, that's just human. You make it sound like that's the wrong answer though, as if you judge them for not wanting to be caught. It's worth remembering that if it was started by a person, it was a child. It's unlikely that they planned to burn the whole school down, it was likely just childish mischief. The only ones who really should carry the guilt of the 92 dead children are the people who made it impossible for them to escape.
Fires happen, that's why we have fire safety regulations. They were ignored because the school liked money and power. That's where the guilt lies.
@@alice45-fgd-456drt disagree. Greed is not the all consuming evil. It makes sense to hold occupancies to the standards in effect at the time the structure and apply current standards to new buildings. If you believe greed killed these kids (and not the fire starter) then the government must pay for ALL upgrades to current standards this costing taxpayers.
@@lindadeters8685 didn't he actually confess, but later recant? Or am I thinking of a different case?
4:16 The rage... The sheer, unadulterated anger coursing through me at the word 'locked'... Those kids were *lucky* that someone could unlock the door. I hope whoever locked it in the first place spent every single remaining moment of their life in agonizing regret.
I came to the comments to say this. You hit the nail on the head. What kind of moron LOCKS a fire door? 😤
Please note: most classrooms I have worked in (and in many school districts) have 2 exits from each classroom. The scary part is that due to design, some exits are on the same wall and use the same hall. One second door exited to another classroom (with a door to the outside).
I recommended this one last year (probably with many others).
Such a thorough and hard look at this event.
It’s never less shocking.
This story gives me nightmares. Fun fact: Jonathan Cain from Journey is a survivor of this tragedy.
I'm a retired, 3rd generation inter city firefighter. Dad helped out in training on occasion. I accidently saw the movie "WHY?" while he was preparing to teach a class. It was a documentary on this fire and it rocked me to the core. I can thank thank the Dear Lord in 35yrs of service I never had to experience what these people went through. May the Lord grant peace to all who died and survived.
This is actually one of the few disaster stories I've actually heard of before. It was talked about in Elementary school. I mainly remember the part about how the entire school was mainly made of wood and the fire extinguishers were too high off the ground. I have to say, putting a fire extinguish so high up where almost no one can use it seems like such a terrible idea.
Jonathan Cain, keyboardist for Journey, The Babys, and Bad English, survived this fire when he was 9 years old.
His autobiography is actually how I first learned about it. It messed him up pretty badly for a long time
I read his book, and learned that information. By the way, the teachers were nuns, not lay teachers. I met a nun years ago who was in the teaching order of that school. She knew the three nuns who died.
I volunteer here almost every week so this was a very interesting video to finally stumble upon. Something that wasn't mentioned is that the original site is now a food pantry run by Franciscans for the last 15 years. I personally helped in its final reconstruction as a retreat center! The Mission of Our Lady of the Angels has a rich history that continues to be written today!
In the 70s the elementary school I went to was old and now gone. High ceilings, tall windows and every door had the window above them. It had wood trim from ceiling to the hardwood floors. The building itself had the same blocks that prisons have from early 1900s. Also the play ground is next to a old cemetery. This place gave all of us kids the creeps.
For people looking for further information, there is a book called “To Sleep With the Angels” by Cowan and Kuenster and a PBS special based on it called “Angels Too Soon.” As a firefighter, the chapter “Firefight” is both chilling and heartbreaking.
To put it simply, the building was radically overcrowded in an atmosphere of complete complacency. This fire was no accident, it was set by a fifth grader who was later found to be a firebug, and OLA was not his first fatal fire.
When I started grammar school in the late 1970’s, I attended Our Lady of Good Counsel School about seven miles from the OLA fire. Immediately after the fire in early 1959, OLGC had mortgaged all the parish properties to build a new school building that was one story, fire resistive, and round, with each room but the library having its own exterior entrance. They were just about finished paying it off when I was there 20 years later.
Fire trap is an accurate assessment. Just looking at that diagram, and knowing how fast a fire can spread, makes you realize how small the window of survivability was.
My mom worked for a catholic school called Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Morton, PA for many years until it regionalize with another school and changed its name to Our Lady of Angels. My mom had mentioned about this OLA fire when the name of her school was changed and how tragic it was. Well, she never imagine that her school would lead to the same fate later on but thankfully, no one was hurt since the fire happened at night, during the summer and the summer camp they held there was during the day. The fire was caused by electrical wire that had gone bad, the building was built in the late 1930's or early 1940's and maybe it wasn't up to code. The school was rebuilt and opened around 2021 but sadly, my mom wasn't able to be present for the reopening since she had passed away from cancer, which she had began getting treatment around the time the fire happened. She was still teaching until mid 2019 while they were temporary located at another school.
2 weeks ago, we had a fire in a school building in the cellar in the paper storage room too.
Luckily it didnt go beyond the room. But it did damage cables and pipeing.
Scary
Watching this while actually designing a fire protection system for a school
👍👍👍
Oh! I didn't realize this was just posted! Excellent work as usual by the way ❤
Yet she must feel guilty for Missing that one child out of all of them.
Hearing in 1910 school had only one fire escape, no automatic fire alarm and no sprinklers is terrifying
School was originally built in 1910, that kind of thing was actually not unusual. What was ridiculous was that, in 1950 they STILL didn’t have more than one fire escape. That should not have been permitted.
Bruh looking back at human history it's actually crazy how we still exist like between nukes and lead fuel it's honestly an achievement 😶 And how many diseases where probably made by humans in a lab but got out 💀🤦🏾♂️
That iron gate across the courtyard entrance is pure insanity.
I was at an Australian university in 2001-2005, in a building built in the 1960s that was 11 floors high. It had no fire alarm, sub standard fire doors to the escape stairs, and the local fire department had no trucks that could reach higher than the 4th floor. I was in a few fire folks, and it took far too long to get down from the 11 th floor. Basically, anyone above the 5th floor would die of smoke inhalation or worse. It wasn't until an incident at the university, in that very building - not a fire - that an alarm and sprinkler system was installed. So, a school built in 1910? Yeah, it gets a (small) pass
Even worse when your remember 172 kids had been killed at a similar school in Collinwood, Ohio in 1908 for those same reasons.
The fact that so many reforms occurred, and yet still failed to recognize the danger of grandfathering older building from retrofitting is a tragedy of the highest order. Grandfathering works for simple rules of conduct but when you're dealing with safety regulations, their should be NO exceptions. Safety should always be the #1 priority, every time. May all who lost their lives rest in piece.
This! It is crazy that fire codes would ever be "grandfathered." Maybe a reasonable period for the changes to be made. Grandfathering should never be in regards to safety issues, only for stuff like zoning (say a business built in an area that is now only for residential use, or maybe hallways that are to narrow to meet handicap code.)
@PlasmaStorm73 [N5EVV] That's the unfortunate trade off. Difficult decisions to balance the need of safety with the massive student body that needs to be accounted for.
How a plan could've been implemented before a disaster like that is far too complicated an issue to be answered in the comments of a RUclips video. It's a notion of folly.
All I know, is that grandfathering those old buildings was NOT the long term solution to the issue. I just wish it was remedied without the lost of human life being the spurring action. But sometimes, that is what it takes.
@PlasmaStorm73 [N5EVV] The same way that they were forced to deal with all those children with no school because their school burned down. Which was to temporarily put their students in other schools in the area. Have 1 school at a time do this, and it doesn't take that long until all the schools are up to code. The money is an issue--sadly politicians don't care about children, because they don't vote. I guess potentially they got insurance money to help build the new school because the old one burned, but not enough to completely pay for the cost of the new school. It's usually cheaper to pay for renovations up front, than to pay to completely rebuild after a tragedy.
It seems like a few of those code violations could of remedied pretty easily. Sealing off the windows above the doors, and lowering the fire extinguishers so everyone can reach them. Over the summer they could of updated the alarm systems.
@@TheRealChristopherB Its not a long-term solution, but rebuilding entire cities every time new safety features are discovered and implemented would likely cost even more lives over time-from underfunded police and fire departments and unbuilt hospitals, not to mention the attrition rate of poverty in a locale that depresses the economy in order to constantly retrofit and rebuild every building.
I agree that grandfather clauses for public buildings should not have been maintained for so long, and that schools of all places should be prioritized over most other public buildings regardless of age, but most people in the comment section are not even acknowledging what the trade-offs entail, and assuming any remotely dissenting opinion on the matter is due to callous greed or corruption.
I first heard about this from my father, who was a school aged boy at the time this happened. Even though he wasn't in the school, it rocked the entire immigrant community.
I went to school and later taught in some buildings that in retrospect, were tragedies waiting to happen. The old wooden interiors are beautiful to look at if properly maintained or renovated, but are no places for 1,000+ students! RIP to all those souls lost on that tragic day. May God bless those sisters who put their students first.
A fire safety film titled “Our Obligation” produced by the LAFD uses nearly all of the same details in the fire at this school (though they claim that the school depicted is not OLA, it’s pretty clear it is)
It seems the main problem was that those that were aware of the fire didn't alert others that needed to know. How hard is it to shout "Fire" ? It seems that even faced with such extreme danger the decision of what to do had to be ceeded to the Principal. It is a ludicrous attitude to trust the hierarchy to make all decisions, people need to understand that there are incidents where time is of the essence and the people seeing a problem arise need to be able to make the decisions. To think this is a thing of the past would be wrong, this sort of attitude still persists as some of those in power want to hold on to every bit of power even if it is to the detriment of the safety of others.
Yup.
Im from the UK, a few years ago after a dream that felt more real than it should, I did my research and come across this disaster. It is absolutely heart breaking and my heart goes out to every family member and child that lost somebody.
I grew up in suburban Chicago. We heard a LOT about this fire.
It seems that everyone of a certain age in the Chicago area has met someone who was in this fire or has a friend or sibling who was. It had a huge emotional impact on a generation.
Jonathan Cain, pianist for the band Journey survived the fire.
One thing not mentioned here is that it was a very cold day. I think the temperature was about 12° F. Cold conditions are also very dry conditions. Cold weather fires are fairly common. I am sure this made the situation that much worse.
This happened before I was born and long before I moved to Chicago. But the ghost of that cold December day 66 years ago abides in this city to this day.
I was just wondering if you'd ever cover this. Well done, you explained it very well. I think you could do a very good video on the Bath School disaster of 1927 as well.
Thank you for covering this fire. My family is from Chicago. This happened in the old neighborhood when my dad and my aunty were school aged. They went to the public school across town but my great uncle was one of the people who saw the smoke from home and ran to the school to help rescue kids that day. I grew up hearing the story but learned so much more from your video. Thank you for documenting these historical events and the people involved so we may never forget their stories.