Anderson and a couple of fellow squad member, carrying two heavy wooden ladders, came to the courtyard where they saw children hanging and jumping from the windows of rooms 211 and 209. After helping break down the gate in the iron fence enclosing the courtyard, they hoisted their ladders up to two of the windows of room 211. Anderson scaled the ladder and started trying to pull children out, but the room flashed over about then and flames were shooting from the window. He was forced back down by the heat, so he set about caring for injured children in the courtyard.

Once the fire was extinguished, he helped recover bodies from the school. Later in the evening, he helped pump water out of the basement and performed other mop up operations. Anderson and his exhausted fellow Squad 6 members finally returned to their company quarters shortly after 11 pm.

Devine immediately radioed the main office, calling for more ambulances. He then deployed his box alarm companies, some for rescue operations, some to begin fire suppression. When, ten minutes later, a large section of the roof collapsed, he ordered a 5-11 alarm, bypassing the usual 3-11 and 4-11 alarms, launching more than 40 additional fire companies to the scene.

Later that evening, Kamin was treated and released from Garfield Park Hospital for minor injuries. In a 1977 interview, he said, “Every once in a while it still bothers you. You can see those kids, and you hear them. I mean, screaming. I can hear the screams right now. And sometimes you're OK, but when you sit down sometimes.” (Tears welled in his eyes.) “It really bothers a fellow. It really does about all those kids.”

Four years later in 1962, while on E-22, he was awarded the Lambert Tree for rescuing a Mother and two children from a burning apartment building.

LeRoy retired in 1985 as Captain of T-36. He passed away August 22, 2010, at the age of 81. Until the day he died, LeRoy seldom shared his experiences at the Our Lady of The Angels fire with his wife, 6 children, and other loved ones, because of the vivid memories of the innocent casualties that had taken place.

Murray's company, Squad 6, was the second or third fire company on scene. They pulled up in front of the church on Iowa Street, which was the address Nora Maloney had given when she placed the first frantic call to the fire department. Just as they arrived, someone from Truck 36, parked just ahead of them on Iowa Street, yelled at Joe to help carry a ladder around to the alley on the north side because they had just discovered that was the true location of the fire. When they reached the alley, there were injured children lying on the ground and others jumping from the second floor windows. Joe rushed to catch children as they jumped, and immediately two children, a little girl and a larger boy, came hurtling down at him simultaneously. It was impossible to catch both, so he had to instantly decide which one to go for. Knowing instinctively that he could save the girl, less certain about the heavier boy, he caught the girl.

Soon fewer were jumping, and smoke was pouring more heavily from the second floor windows, so he climbed a ladder to one of room 210's windows, and began pulling children out. It was difficult to get them out, though, because they were so tightly packed at the windows. He then climbed inside the room and continued to shove children out onto the ladder. Fire had been pouring in through the transoms above the doors, and was now burning all across the ceiling, dropping lower and lower in the room. Suddenly, he could sense that the room was nearing flashover and headed back out the window. On his way out, he grabbed two children next to the window and tossed them out ahead of him. He felt badly about that, but it was their only chance to live. Just as he got out onto the ladder, the room flashed over, sending flames shooting out all the windows with a roar.

Realizing that no one in the room was still alive after the flashover, he climbed down the ladder and went around to the courtyard. There he spent some time on a ladder spraying water into room 211.

Next he entered the school through the Avers Avenue entrance, and climbed to the second floor, where he joined up with members of Squad 1, who were attempting to push the fire back into the main hallway in order to gain entry to the classrooms. When they finally breached the walls and gained access to the classrooms, their worst fears were realized: dozens of children had been unable to escape in time and had perished.

Joe remained in the fire service until his retirement in 1991 as a battalion chief.

His longtime friend and deputy state fire marshal, Jack Ahern, said Power was “an excellent firefighter, always the first one there, the hardest worker and the easiest guy to get along with in the firehouse. He was a fireman's fireman. He'd get to a fire and he wouldn't get rattled or anything. He'd know exactly what to do and how to do it. Power was known to fellow firefighters as “Happy.”

According to his daughter, Eileen Bowery, it was the worst fire he ever fought because he was a young father himself at the time.

Scheidt was forever haunted by the memory of the discovery of the dead children piled underneath the windows in the second floor classrooms. It was the single worst thing he experienced in his career as a firefighter.

Richard Scheidt passed away at age 81 on April 6, 2009.

Dr. Fox passed away at age 86 on February 22, 1997.

Later, Dr. Segraves reflected on those early hours: “It was deathly quiet. The children whimpered, but they didn't cry. They were abnormally polite, pitifully grateful. I remember one badly burned girl of nine. She kept worrying about her little brother who was a first-grader at the school. She wouldn't let anyone give her a sedative until she learned that he was safe at home. Then she said, 'Please give me something to make it stop hurting.'”

“The first thing we knew was when the fire bell rang.” she said. “It was a nice, wintry day and I figured soneone thought they'd catch us napping - that it was just a fire drill.

The smoke was so thick in the halls and eventually the classrooms, that about 15 students could not see to escape. Sister Andrienne ran back through the suffocating smoke, located her remaining students and led them through the blinding, toxic smoke to safety and clean air outside.

“I led the children out in regular formation. Within minutes the smoke became so heavy I couldn't see.

She received unwanted media attention by rolling some children down a stairway like logs.

“I told the children to crawl on the floor, and roll down the stairway. I forced them. Pushed them. I told them to lie down. It was awful. Then I began to carry some. The other sisters did, too. I don't want to be a hero. There were so many sisters trying to help.”

Sister Seraphica was found by firemen beneath a pile of children near a window.

Sister Helaine was critically burned before being brought down a ladder by firemen.

Father Joe attempted to get into the north wing through the annex, but was blocked by intense fire, heat and smoke. He then noticed parent Sam Tortorice struggling to rescue children from the rear window of room 209. Father Joe sat astride a window ledge in the annex and, as Mr. Tortorice pulled children from the rear window of room 209, he pulled them into the annex. From there they fled down an internal steel staircase and out an exit to Iowa Street.

He then ran back into the school and made his way to the second floor where he discovered that the children and nun in room 207 were trapped behind a locked classroom door. He unlocked the door, and together with priest Charles Hund, quickly pulled the half unconscious children and teacher from the increasingly hot and toxic classroom to the school's lone fire escape. Just seconds after the last child exited the room, it flashed over. All 40 would have perished but for the heroic efforts of Raymond and Hund.

Barbara rushed out into the alley between her store and the school, and found to her horror that smoke was billowing from the school. She ran back into her store and called the fire department, who said they had already been notified and that help was on the way. She ran back outside to the alley, where children were now jumping from second floor windows of the school. Children were lying unconscious in the alley, injured from the fall. Barbara began dragging them away from the school so others wouldn't land on them.

Soon after that, she helped a number of injured children into her store and covered them with blankets to keep them warm until help arrived. Fortunately, her own daughter, Helena, escaped without injury.

“As soon as I got to the second floor, I saw smoke so thick you couldn't move. The boys and girls were screaming for help. I shouted, 'Grab my hand.'

“Some of them grabbed my hand and I led them back down the stairs.”

“Every time I saw him from that day on,” said his niece, “I would have tears in my eyes due to the admiration I had for him. I would recount his heroism to everyone as I introduced him.”

He ran to the school where he saw his 13-year-old daughter, Rose, among a crowd of children in the window of her classroom, room 209. He ran into the school and made his way to second floor of the annex connecting the north and south wings of the school. He threw open the annex window nearest the window where his daughter and other children were screaming for help. He swung his leg out the window and sat straddling the window ledge, where he could just reach the nearest students in Rose's window. He began pulling children through their classroom window and in through the annex window, where they could run down a flight of stairs and outside to safety. He managed to save several children this way, but Rose remained out of reach behind other panicky children at the window. A neighbor had tossed a ladder over the courtyard fence, so Tortorice jumped down to a canopy over a first-floor entrance below his window, and then to the ground. Using the ladder he climbed back onto the canopy, then pulled the ladder up and placed it from the canopy to his daughter's classroom window. He climbed up the ladder and again started pulling children from the window.

Meanwhile, Father Joe Ognibene was in the annex helping children escape down the interior stairways, when he noticed Mr. Tortorice struggling to rescue children from room 209. Father Ognibene leaned out the same window Tortorice had climbed through, and began pulling children into the annex as Tortorice pulled them from the classroom. Working together, they were able to rescue nearly all of the remaining children from the burning classroom. Only one child, Beverly Burda, failed to escape from room 209. She had passed out after being overcome by smoke, and fell to the floor. The room was so thick with smoke that no one could see her lying on the floor.

Sam Tortorice not only saved his daughter, Rose, but a great many of her classmates as well.