I know that age eight is about the time when you become aware of death and what it is, but it is usually later in life before you realize that someone your age can die. I knew and I remember being afraid for my friends even when I was an adolescent and we were all supposedly immortal.

I don't have nightmares about being in the fire, but for some reason the subject occurs often in my dreams. It has made a very deep mark on me and has probably embedded itself in my subconscious as a symbol of all the worst uncertainties of life.

I grieve for the families and for the survivors who are still in pain and hope that they find healing, if not in this life, then in the next.

My father Dr. Michael Rainiero was in the emergency room at Franklin Blvd. Hospital and he never did have time to call home and see if we were alright. Too many injured children were brought there.

For a long time all I could think about was what would have happened if I did go to the bathroom earlier. Maybe I could have helped avoid this tragedy by warning people sooner. I still live with that thought.

We went to Our Lady Help of Christians first and then to John Cameron School.

We were bussed to John Cameron School and I used to hide in the back of the church until the bus left because I was afraid to go to school. I would walk home and my mom would take me back to the rectory where Father McDonald talked with me and escorted me to the bus to make sure I got on. I also will never forget how Sister Geraldita had a breakdown in front of us. She put her head on the desk and asked to be taken to God. I still can't stand elevators and plane rides and locked doors.

We were the first graduating class from the new school in 1961. I remember bricks and steel and how much light the new school had because of all the windows. Sister Mary Paul Ellen was my eighth grade teacher. I kept in touch with her for many years after that. She really helped me get through some rough spots. Sometimes in my life now I forget little things, but I will never forget that day.

I first heard about the OLA fire when I was in fisrt grade. My school had to have fire drills once a month, and I hated them. My teacher told me they were for us to be safe, and she told me about a school that kids had to jump out of a window to survive.

I haven't stopped hating fire drills, but I apperciate them more because of OLA. I have read "To Sleep With the Angels", and it was hard for me to do so because I know somebody who was in it. My heart goes out to all those who helped on that day and who put up this website. It is a great tribute.

I do remember how somber everyone was at our school and how fearful we also were. It was after this fire that sprinklers were put into our school. The whole tragedy is very vivid in my memory and seeing the pictures really brings back the time. It was such a tragedy and we were always afraid it would happen to us, as our school was big and old as well. I remember how afraid I was of fire drills and also having to go to the second floor of the building. I also swore to myself that if our school was ever on fire, I would not, for the first time in my life, listen to the nuns, but would run out of the building as quickly as I could.

I knew Eddie Berg in high school who told me that he and his sister went to Our Lady of the Angels. I don't see his or her name listed. According to what he told me, both he and his sister were able to get out. I think he was 10 at the time.

The school was in my Aunt's neighborhood and she also was greatly affected by the tragedy.

God bless all of you survivors - I hope that you know The Lord and can feel His love and grace.

Best to all,

Kate T - Phoenix, AZ Area

We were herded into the church and instructed to pray for the school and the children. Probably the Rosary. The atmosphere was confused and distracted and some kids from throughout the church were agitated and crying but it was reasonably orderly. Then a rumor, totally false, spread that the church was on fire, too. We were promptly dismissed and told to go home. As we poured out of the church and down the steps, I looked right, back towards the school and saw many adults just milling about. Maybe there were some fire hoses sprawled about, too. There wasn't anything out of order on the south side, not even much smoke because the wind was blowing to the north or northeast. I turned left and crossed Hamlin and started the 3 blocks to home. It seemed like the farther I got from school, the more my anxiety level rose. I started to cry, thinking, my school is hurting, my school is hurting. It never crossed my mind that CHILDREN were injured, that CHILDREN were dying. What does a 9 year old know about death? Even watching the TV that night, hearing the death toll rise, it didn't seem to be REALLY happening to children I knew and saw every day. One thing I did know, though, is that the rooms we so carelessly left, we would never enter again.

Walking down Iowa St. past Ridgeway and Lawndale, I don't remember seeing other people at all. The public schools should have been out by then and there always seemed to be people around in the neighborhood, but I don't remember seeing anyone except for one mother who was hurrying to school to find her own child. She stopped to comfort me and hug me and went on her way.

When I got home to our 2 flat on Monticello, I ran up the back stairs into the house, crying "Mama, Mama, the school is on fire". My mother, who had been sewing in the back bedroom looked up in horror and asked where Mary, my 2nd grade sister, was. I didn't know so she grabbed her coat and one for Mary and ran out ordering me to stay home with my toddler sister and my grandma. Whe it seemed like she had been gone so long, I asked my grandma if I could go outside to wait. She gave me permission and I walked down to the corner of Iowa and Monticello to see if I could see them coming, because you could almost see somone coming all the way from Hamlin. I looked and looked and there seemed to be no one on the streets. There may have been people coming home from work or from the schools, but I was looking so hard for my mother and sister that I don't remember. I even tried to stand on the fire hydrant to see better but I couldn't balance and look at the same time. Eventually it got too dark or too cold to wait outside anymore so I went home. Eventually my mother and my sister returned unharmed. We watched the TV all night in utter shock and disbelief along with the rest of the city and the country. So many children. So much grief.

We finished out the school year by attending Our Lady Help of Christians. This was way cool because we got prepared lunches and got to ride chartered buses every day and only had classes for a half day. The 2nd floor wasn't too high off the ground, either. But, eventually, the novelty wore off and we just wanted to be back at our school, the everyday way we used to be. Such a simple, beautiful, impossible wish.

The next year, arrangements were made for us to attend 3 local public schools, Orr, Hay and Cameron. The largest group went to Hay. Mary and I went to Cameron. Cameron was a big oldfashioned Chicago public school with high, airy rooms and tall windows that you opened from the top with a big pole. The rooms seemed very much like our old OLA rooms. They were sunny and breezy and so high up over the bungalows and 2 flats of the neighborhood that we felt that we could see about half the city from up there. Of course, if you looked down from those windows you knew it was way too high to jump from in case of another fire. So we tried to forget our unease about that.

Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, in the fall of 1960, we came back together to be a whole school again. The new Our Lady of the Angels was complete and it was the newest, safest and most modern school in the country. The halls were wide and sparkly clean and the rooms were large and sunny. Everything was new, new, new. New desks, new books, new everything. I was so proud to be there and relieved to be back with all the classes. I felt out fallen classmates were looking out for us and happy for us even as we remembered them and hoped they were with us. They were always, always with us. After 1 year, my parents bought a house in Austin and we moved away.

I felt like my heart was ripped out. Although OLA will always be remembered with unspeakable sadness, it was a great school to attend in a great, comfortable, and safe neighborhood. It is easy to forget that a large majority of children escaped unharmed. And I haven't even started on the wonderful, beautiful faces I remember and all the funny, goofy ordinary kid things we did. I loved OLA. And it was so worth loving. In spite of the grief and horror associated with OLA, in spite of all the difficult and complex emotions and memories, it was so worth loving.

My Uncle was a hero that day and I was very proud of his actions. I was very moved by what he told us and still feel a part of me was there that day.

Theresa, Valparaiso, Indiana

Our nun, Sr. Mary Edgar was out ill that day and I believe we had the Mother Superior as our substitute. She had left the room and it was going on 3:00 as she came back in to give us a homework reading assignment. The bell for dismissal was about to ring but suddenly the fire alarm went off. We were strictly trained to stand and form a line to file directly outside into the street, without stopping for coats or anything, and all of us began to do so. She told us to be re-seated as it was a false alarm. However, a lay teacher came to the door and told her there was smoke in the 2nd floor stairway, and then we all panicked and started for the door as quickly as possible. The cold air hit our faces as we all went into the street to face the horrible tragedy that was before our eyes. In just minutes we saw students at the 2nd floor windows covered with black soot screaming down for help! I remember thinking how could I help them up there, when I am down here and I am so short!

There were fire trucks, ambulances, police cars and people screaming everywhere. Finally some nuns and priests came to tell us to file into the church so we could all pray to God for help! The church was filled with students and parents and families looking for loved ones. Miss Joan Rossi, a lay teach who lived in an apartment near my home, found me and my two friends Lois and Darlene and had her boyfriend take us to our homes in his truck.

As family and friends found out about the news they were calling and coming over, and every time the phone or doorbell rang, I seemed to jump a mile high because it reminded me of sirens.

My grandparents lived with us then and they had just arrived home before I got there and they had no clue as to what had happened. When she saw me at the door with no coat and I smelled of thick smoke she started to cry at what she heard had happened. My grandmother also kept telling me how lucky I was to be near an exit that was right by an outside door and how God had wanted to save my life - she took me to every funeral home on Chicago Avenue to share prayers for the families of my fellow students who did not survive that horrible event.

I stayed on at OLA while the new school was being built and we werer bussed to various schools in the city so we could continue classed. I went to John Hayes Public School, and was back at OLA for my fifth grade term. I stayed until November, when I was confirmed with my class and then moved to Morton Grove to join my parents and brother. I attended NIU and graduated from Mundelein College on Sheridan Rd., graduating with a BA in English. I now work for a Computer Distributor in Bloomingdale, IL.

I will never forget the horror, the shock, the sadness, the pain and trauma of that December 1st, 1958. As I told Eric before, I know God took the lives of those children and nuns to serve as Angels, but those of us who survived are also special Angels that he left here on earth to serve and tell our stories as well.