Chicago Catholic Grade School Fire

Twenty-four days before Christmas in 1958 there was a huge fire at Our Lady of the Angels, a Catholic grade school in Chicago Eighty-seven children and three nuns died in this fire. One of the children who passed was Mary’s little sister, Karen. She was to be a first grader forever. Mary was in the fourth grade at the time. Mary spent years trying to forget that day, the worst day ever. The frantic nuns, the commotion, the smoke, the frenzy. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting on the sidewalk across the street. Watching the school burn up, wondering where Karen was. A sister who never came home. Mary felt shame for leaving her. She had wanted to run in there and rescue Karen. But the adults restrained her. Her family waited for hours hoping for a miracle. Watching the front door, praying Karen would walk inside. She never did. Eighty-six other children did not return home either. Probably led to heaven by the three nuns.