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Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) School Fire, December 1, 1958

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Parents, relatives, friends and neighbors look on in horror, many not knowing if their children have escaped the inferno or not.
#15  
Men openly wept as the extent of the tragedy became known. Parents, bystanders and even firemen were numb with shock and grief.
#53  
Beverly Ann Burda was the only child who did not make it out of Room 209 alive (Valery Ann Thoma died in the hospital on March 10, 1959). Stanley Burda, Beverly's father, was recovering in the hospital from an eye injury when he received news of Beverly's death. He was released from the hospital early, fitted with special glasses, with instructions from his doctor not to cry - the salt water from his tears could damage his left eye, which was still healing.
#169  
Parents arrived at the school expecting to pick up their children, and instead found a scene of indescribable horror: children plummeting from windows, some on fire, landing on pavement or concrete; others screaming for rescue from the windows; others wandering around in a daze, injured or burned and going into shock.
#140  
A child looks on as his school is destroyed. In one horrible hour, nearly 100 children from the neighborhood are simply gone. Children lost siblings, best friends, neighbors - and teachers - in the most horrifying way imaginable.
#69  
Stunned bystanders continue to watch mop up operations after the fire is out and bodies are being removed. (Life Magazine Photo)
#502  
The anguish of not knowing the fate of a beloved child, is exceeded only by learning the worst - that the child did not escape the inferno.
#152  
The anguish of not knowing the fate of a beloved child, is exceeded only by learning the worst - that the child did not escape the inferno.
#83  
The crushing grief of losing a child was almost more than parents could bear. Parents sent their children to school without a second thought as to their safety inside the school. The unexpected nature of the tragedy made it that much harder to face.
#54  
Watching in horror as bodies are carried from the school, a mother is steadied by other spectators. A red cross worker is making a list of children who are missing.
#163  
Disbelief, shock, horror and grief were all that greeted parents who came to the school that afternoon, expecting to pick up their children after school. Instead, they found the school ablaze with injured children lying about below the windows of the north wing, and many more jumping, falling or being pushed 25 feet to the concrete below.
#55  
At the Cook County Morgue, parents and relatives of missing children, joined by a nurse, recite the rosary with Father Lawrence Biskner <I>(top left)</I>.
#171  
Bystanders help carry an injured girl to an awaiting ambulance.
#329