To Sleep with the Angels: The Story of a Fire by David Cowan

May 16, 2013 Rosanne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

This is a difficult book to read as it relates a terrible tragedy at a Catholic elementary school in Chicago in the 1950's. I chose to read this because I attended another Catholic elementary school in Chicago at the time of the fire that destroyed Our Lady of Angels school. Ninety-three children and three nuns lost their lives and innumerable children suffered terrible injuries. The adults in my life including my parents and the nuns at our school kept most of the details from those of us in sc...more

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May 18, 2009 Leslie rated it 4 of 5 stars

What I learned from this book is that human nature has myriad facets. This huge fire started in a Catholic school, Our Lady of the Angels in Chicago, on Dec. 1, 1958. It was huge before anyone realized that the school was even on fire. The school was massively overcrowded, 50 and 60 kids per classroom, yet had passed every inspection up to that point. It was built the way most schools were in that day: wood floors highly polished with flammable varnishes; wooden desks; transoms above the doors;...more What I learned from this book is that human nature has myriad facets. This huge fire started in a Catholic school, Our Lady of the Angels in Chicago, on Dec. 1, 1958. It was huge before anyone realized that the school was even on fire. The school was massively overcrowded, 50 and 60 kids per classroom, yet had passed every inspection up to that point. It was built the way most schools were in that day: wood floors highly polished with flammable varnishes; wooden desks; transoms above the doors; tall iron fence with locked gate; no breakaway handle on the inside of the fire escape door; windows with high sills, plaster walls, etc. The roof had never been peeled and re-done, just layer upon layer of roofing, so the fire couldn't break through, causing the flames and heat to collect on the second floor; even the firemen couldn't break through the roof with axes. The teachers kept waiting for the principal nun to ring the fire alarm before they evacuated. No one else was supposed to ring it. The alarm was 6' off the ground and rang only in the school, not in the firehouse, too. Several of the nuns had their kids pray or say the rosary when they might have been able to evacuate. The fire extinguisher was above reach. The fire alarm box on a pole was a block and a half away. The first person who called in the fire gave the wrong address for the school. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

After the fire, no one would talk about it. It became a neighborhood of people with PTSD. The Bishop wouldn't even talk about it, and the priests didn't go to the children's funerals. They felt that if they ignored it, the ugliness would go away on its own.

The two men who wrote the book are both journalists in the Chicago area. The book was really well researched and written. The description of Chicago at the time of the fire was fascinating. They laid out the scene beautifully, describing all the major players (Mayor Daley, the Bishop, the fire commissioner, etc.), the political scene, the weather, the city).

I think that this book will stay with me a long time.

(less)

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Sep 27, 2012 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, fires, american-history, non-fiction

Amazing book!! Very sad. Very tragic. This book is extremely well written. Easy to follow and very well researched. Even though there is a lot of information it is easily absorbed and it reads like you are watching a movie. The balance of pre-fire, the actual event and the aftermath is perfect. No unnecessary information or fading off the subject. And the search for the cause is almost as gripping as the fire itself. This is a horrific event!! If you are a very sensitive or soft hearted person.....more

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Jul 27, 2011 Jessi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, death, history

This is a fantastic account of the 1958 Chicago fire at Our Lady of the Angels School in which 92 students and 3 nuns died. It looks at the events of the fire, reaction of the Catholic church and surrounding community, why the cause remains "undetermined" (despite a confession from a student), and why the construction of the school was just an tragedy waiting to happen. The most touching are the recollections of the students (many of whom were burned and/or injured when jumping from windows), th...more

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Jul 03, 2011 Andrew Hathaway rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the few books that have made me cry. Cowan tells the terrifying story of faith misled at the worst possible moment, the worst moment of which when nuns decide to lead their students in prayer instead of leading them out of a burning building. Cowan doesn't judge though, letting the survivors speak for themselves and presenting their opinions as objective as he possibly can. What results is a great memoir of survivors and how we trudge on after unimaginable loss. It could stand to be a lit...more

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May 04, 2010 Dave rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hard to give stars to such a sad and tragic tale, but it is written with both delicacy and frankness. The authors really shed light on a topic I had always heard about but never received the full story. The bits of politics and mystery associated with the fire complemented the utter devastation that was well-communicated throughout the story. There are two kinds of books that are hard to read--those that are thick with confusion and those that are rife with non-fiction tales of suffering. Certai...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: arts-and-historical

On a grey winter day in December 1958, one of the deadliest fires in American history took the lives of ninety-two children and three nuns at a Catholic elementary school on Chicago's West Side. The blaze at Our Lady of the Angels School shocked the nation. It left many families physically and psychologically scarred for life, destroyed a close-knit working-class neighborhood, and sowed popular suspicion of the church hierarchy and city fathers. No one was ever prosecuted for setting the fire; t...more

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Jun 07, 2011 Tammy Marler added it

This book was very hard to read. I had to put it down at times as the thoughts of what was experienced is heartbreaking. I remember seeing the pictures in the paper when I was young and it was a memory that always stayed with me. Being able to read the story, helped me understand what it was all about. There were many heros out of this sad event. Because of the overwhelming catastrophe, we sometimes forget about them. This is also proof that bad thigs need to happen in order to set standards for...more

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Feb 10, 2011 Edie rated it 5 of 5 stars

A powerful retelling of the fire that ravished a Catholic school in Chicago in the late 1950's. Incredibly horrific and sad to see the staggering loss of life; over 90 children an 3 nuns. This really hits home for me having attended a similar old Catholic school in Chicago myself. My mom, who was a young woman in Chicago at the time, remembers this event clearly. Sort of the "Do you remember what you were doing when..." situation. On the positive side this tragedy led to major fire safety change...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Sue rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the story of the tragic school fire at Our Lady of the Angels in Chicago. It was a familiar story for me and I remember it clearly. Its impact was felt all through our school and parish communities. The authors retell the story: the background, the devastating event and its aftermath with excruciating accuracy. This event had an impact on fire and school safety. So many lives lost, so many questions on the decisions that were made. Hopefully we have learned from this event and its surviv...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Maureen added it

This is a book that I have read at least three times over the years. This incident really affected our family, and was talked about often as I was growing up. I was in first grade, my sister in 7th grade and my brother in 8th grade. In those days there were Catholic churches and schools every few blocks. The day of the fire my parents heard the reports on a Chicago radio station, but the the name of the school was not mentioned at first. Our school was a short distance from Our Lady of Angels, a...more

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Jul 23, 2009 Eric_W rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history-historiography

The devastating fire that occurred in early December 1958 at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago had a lasting impact on school construction. Almost before the 5-11 alarm was struck and more than eighty fire companies arrived on the scene, 92 children and 3 nuns died, most of them on the second floor of one wing.

The authors interviewed many survivors and have woven their searing recollections into a nightmarish tale of bravery, cupidity and foolishness.

The building was a typical parochial s...more The devastating fire that occurred in early December 1958 at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago had a lasting impact on school construction. Almost before the 5-11 alarm was struck and more than eighty fire companies arrived on the scene, 92 children and 3 nuns died, most of them on the second floor of one wing.

The authors interviewed many survivors and have woven their searing recollections into a nightmarish tale of bravery, cupidity and foolishness.

The building was a typical parochial school of the fifties and had been reviewed by a fire inspector just days before the fire. It was old, had windows set high off the floor to discourage children from playing on them (many of the youngsters were too small to reach the window ledges to jump), and the building had several layers of tar on the roof after several reroofings. All this tar prevented the fire from going through the roof and venting the smoke that became deadly. Had each older layer been stripped, the interior of the building would not have become so hot and smoky so quickly, providing more time for the children to escape. The floors consisted of highly varnished, dry, and highly inflammable wood. The stairwells were open without doors at each end and they acted like chimneys, spreading the fire quickly and preventing exiting by the normal fire routes. Several rooms had two doors, but one was usually locked (the nuns had keys, but one teacher realized to her horror as she tried to shepherd children out of the room through a back door, that she had left her keys at home that day. Only the bravery of the janitor and a priest who ran back into the burning building and broke the door saved several of the children. Finally, the school was over-enrolled and the classes filled to beyond capacity (some classrooms had as many as sixty children.)

The Chicago fire code required that new construction stairwells be constructed of non-combustible materials, but the law was did not require existing building to retrofit the buildings. The school also did not have a sprinkler system.

Despite a massive investigation, authorities could only determine that the fire had most probably been set, but they could find no evidence who was responsible. Separate and independent investigations resulted in two confessions. Obviously, both could not be valid. The most likely scenario supported by what little evidence they could accumulate was the fire was probably set by a boy with a history of fire-setting who was sent to a juvenile home in Michigan for having set other fires. He admitted to setting the fire at Our Lady of the Angels where he had been a student, but he later recanted the confession. He later served a tour in Vietnam and again denied to the authors that he had set the fire at the school. To this day the fire is officially listed as "undetermined cause;" the church insists the cause was accidental.

Many students had been very seriously burned and their ordeal continues to this day. Numerous painful skin grafts could not eliminate the physical and psychological scarring. The Chicago Diocese paid $7,500 per dead child and awards up to $35,000 for those badly injured. They were anxious to put the whole matter to bed as quietly as possible. Gee, that sounds familiar. A fund set up to help defray medical expenses that continue to 1995, when the book was published, was legally closed out in 1994.

Many of the survivors suffered from "survivor's guilt," a condition made worse by the "literal canonization of victims by some nuns, who, fueled by their own repressed grief, explained to the children that `only the good ones were taken.' " Recalled one survivor," `It's funny how it plays on you, the message they were handing out to us. The ones who died were called the "lucky ones," the "chosen ones." They were the ones God wanted. `"

Many others were blamed following the fire. The school's janitor suffered in particular. He was wrongly accused of having set the fire or of not keeping the basement cleaned up. Neither charge was accurate, but he was pilloried by the neighborhood just the same. His life was ruined. The fire department was unjustly accused of delay. In reality, the call was placed to them very late because of some misunderstandings, and the fire alarm in the school building was not connected to ring in the fire department or at the call box. Once they received the alarm, the first engine company was on the scene in less than three minutes, and a 5-11 was called in almost immediately, bringing twenty-two engine companies, seven ladder companies and ten squad companies to the scene. They were able to rescue 200 children despite appalling conditions and no breathing apparatus (not used by fire companies until several years later). The church was unjustly accused of maintaining an unsafe environment for the children, yet it met all the fire codes in place at the time of its construction, and the building itself was well-maintained. A lot of what-if's.
We learn from our mistakes, and schools today are much safer relative to fire. It's unfortunate that so many children had to die for the changes to take effect.(less)

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Nov 27, 2011 Lauren rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: chicago, history, favorites

I read this book every year around the time of the fire (late November up to early December). I feel a very personal connection to this event and it has a lot of meaning to me. I am fascinated by the events that led to, occured during and followed the tragedy and how the events unfolded back then as opposed to if the fire had happened today. God Bless all the students, parents, Sisters and others who were effected by this terrible tragedy. I will never forget.

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Oct 14, 2009 Peg rated it 4 of 5 stars

I think most people alive in 1958 remember the horror of this fire (Our Lady of the Angels school in Chicago) - and it was vivid for me because my grade school was as much a fire trap as this school (as were many, many schools at the time. This recounting was recommended by one of my former high school classmates, and it is sad, sad, sad. I didn't know before reading this that they know who set the fire (a troubled student) but couldn't/didn't prosecute him.

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Sep 22, 2011 Jan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, borrowed, favorites, wishlist

A heart wrenching and well reported story surrounding the events leading to the worst school fire in American History. I well remember that day in 1958, the TV and newspaper accounts of this tragedy and the aftermath that followed. I was horrified to discover that many of the myths we were led to believe that sensationalized this fire, i.e., the fire department didn't repond, the janitor was a drunk, the ladders weren't tall enough to reach the windows, the nuns made the children stay in their s...more

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Oct 03, 2012 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

A heart-breaking look into the series of events leading up to the Our Lady of Angels fire in Chicago. Happened long before I moved to the area, but thought it would be interesting. The series of little delays in getting the fire reported and raised to the correct level of concern are what really get you. A couple minutes earlier, and most could have been saved. Highly recommended.

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Jan 16, 2012 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excellent book about the Our Lady of the Angels school fire in 1958. Somewhat creepy, because my son's Catholic school is built just like OLA -- high ceilings, transoms over the doors, etc. My admiration for this book is tempered by the fact that author David Cowan was convicted of arson himself -- setting fire to a storage facility at a Catholic school. Too much time thinking about fires?

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Jul 07, 2012 Carolyn Bay rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very thoroughly researched. They did a good job telling a very difficult story. I remember this event and watching TV news as the reporter walked through the burned classroom. I knew Michelle McBride (one of the victims) briefly and I've read her book. I wanted to read a more comprehensive book that told more than one person's story. This did more than that. It was well worth reading

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Jul 14, 2010 Mary Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

While it's hard to say you enjoyed reading a book about a tragedy, having attended Catholic school, in an old brick 3 story building, surrounded by a high fence, I feel the authors captured very well a moment in time. Hard to believe, too, some of the modern conveniences we take for granted--such as that everyone had a phone in their home--would be not so common in 1958.

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Apr 14, 2008 Mom added it · review of another edition

Recommended to Mom by: Sister Mary Paulina BVM

When I was in the third grade is when this tradgey happened. I remember it as if it happened. At that time, they would list names of the people who died. 93 people were killed, 90 students, 3 nuns.

I remember one little girl ~Lynn~ who had to go to school to finish a project. The nun who taught me, Sr. Mary Dorothy Louise was transferred up to Our Lady of the Anels after the Christmas Break. When we were in 8th grade our girl scout troop went to Chicago and also visited with Sister. She gave us...more

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Oct 22, 2012 Bonnie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Good, this is a sad true story that features the part my great Uncle Walter McCarron, Chicago Coroner played in investigating the tragic fire that killed so many children in the late 1950's. Shows how a tragedy is turned into a impetus for change in the fire code laws in Chicago and across the country. Moving true story.

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Jan 04, 2011 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: disasters

A very sad story about a horrible fire in a Catholic school in 1958. The descriptions from some of the firefighters are heartbreaking. One in particular has stayed with me and probably always will. I can't even imagine what the victims, survivors and rescuers went through that day.

I can't help but think of two things: the "boy" had some serious issues that didn't sound resolved. It's a miracle he didn't become a killer as an adult and religion and politics should never mix.

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Mar 16, 2010 Book Concierge rated it 5 of 5 stars

On December 1, 1958 a fire at Our Lady of the Angels Catholic grade school in Chicago killed 92 pupils and three nuns. This is their story. The authors write a page-turning account of the contributing causes of the blaze and of the deaths. Compelling storytelling. I could not put it down.

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Feb 21, 2013 J. Dallas rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fire-department-ems

An in-depth, true account of one of the nations worst fire tragedies. This book is a minute by minute telling of what happened that day in December of 1958. It is a thoroughly researched account and filled with insight from those who lived through it and whoes lives were forever changed.

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Feb 17, 2009 Mom rated it 4 of 5 stars

A very sad sad story about kids dieing in fire. I read this because my daughter was required to read it her senior year in high school. Living in Chicago made it even more realistic. A parents worst nightmare, sending your kid off to school never to come home.

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Jul 07, 2012 Rick Rapp rated it 4 of 5 stars

This event changed the way America deals with fire codes and preparation. I was only five years old when it happened, but I clearly remember TV and newspaper coverage (pictures mostly.)
The book does a good job with a touchy subject and with society's need to blame.

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Aug 20, 2009 Marla rated it 5 of 5 stars

sad, horribly sad, gripping true story of the catholic school fire in chicago, 1958, that changed the rules of fire safety forever. wonderful reporting, graphic, heart-wrenching descriptions, and worth every second.

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May 08, 2013 Mburnham rated it 3 of 5 stars

Rough to read... Lots of researched and detailed facts though. A book I will remember about a very tragic event in Chicago history that I remember hearing about and seeing on the news in 1958

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Jul 23, 2012 Toni Caponera added it

I was afraid to read it, that it would be too sad. No doubt it was beyond sad. It still was a great great book. You can't hardly believe it happened. Still.

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Jun 05, 2011 Michele added it

This book was great, it detailed a fire at a Catholic elementary school in Chicago which was so horrific that it was the basis of our fire laws today.

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