The Terre Haute Tribune du lieu suivant : Terre Haute, Indiana • Page 2

2 The Terre Haute Tribune Tuesday, December 2, 1958. Youngsters' Faces Tell Grim Disaster TEARS OF bring tears to the eyes of a boy who was lucky to escape the holocaust in Our Lady of Angels Catholic School io Chicago. At left a lad sits in wheelchair with in braces. AP Wirephoto. Nl MB WITH SHOCK Pain aud fear are evident everywhere among the children, still in a daze after a brush with death.

Above, three of them are treated in the overcrowded hospital emergency roam. AP Wirephoto. Nl HELPS WITH nun helps carry an inert form of a girl pupil toward a waiting ambulance, not knowing how many dead remain in the rubble that was a school only a few moments AP Wirephoto. LIKE A pupil suffering from burns, shock and smoke inhalation, awaits treatment at a hospital after his rescue. More than four score of classmates and teachers are known dead.

AP Wirephoto. Disaster Cause In Fire Fatal To 90 in Doubt Continued From Page One. gin of the fire is still Pape continued. He said it sense that a child would set the fire and then return to bis classroom. Flames Spread Quickly.

The FBI offered its co-operation in the probe in the event investigators turned up evidence of arson. Authorities said thev had not ruled out arson as a possible cause. Sgt. Drew' Brown of the arson detail said the thick smoke, at first believed to have been oil. apparently came from thick wax on the second floors.

He said the flames spread quickly when the second floor window's were opened by panic- stricken youngsters seeking an escape route and sucked the smoke and flames up through the stairwell to the upper flow. He said the fire corV have been vnoidering fw some time in tightly packed papers under the stairwell before it broke out. The building had only one outside fire escape. Heroic nuns and men who dashed into the burning building from the street helped save most of the 1.300 children in the school. Firemen carried down others on ladders from upper floors.

A crowd of 10.000, many of them hysterical parents, swarmed around the burning building. They had to be restrained by police cordons. The officers wept openly. It as the worst school fire in history and the most tragic blaze since the Iroquois Theatre fire killed 575 persons in 1903. It was the nation's worst school fire since 294 were k.lled in an explosion at New London.

Tex in March 1937. In Teeming Neighborhood. The school, formerly a church, is located in teeming West Side in a neighborhood made up largely of working people of Italian, German and Irish descent. In recent weeks, a number of Chicago schools have had bomb threats and scares, tied in i Negro-White integration. There were do Negro students in Our Lady of the Angels.

Anguished parents rushed from the school to hospitals and, finally, to the Cook County Morgue in search of their children. They filed past rows of hastily erected benches in the morgue basement, looking with horror at the charred, blanket-covered bodies. For many the effort was futile. Some bodies were burned beyond recognition. Coroner Walter McCarron said he would impanel a ribbon to investigate the cause.

Fire Commissioner Robert Quinn ordered an investigation by arson experts. Dense Smoke Fills Building. Quinn said the fire broke out in the lower part of the rear stairwell in the northwest corner of the U-shaped school. Dense smoke indicating burning oil, rolled through the building. There were reports the fire was preceded by an explosion but the reports could not be confirmed.

Quinn said the speed with which the flames flashed through the building prevented the children from fleeing through the six exits. Quinn said, just tiw sat 8 ONE OF WORST By United Press International. The Chicago school explosion and fire Monday was apiong the worst soeh disasters ever to strike in the United States. According to the World Almanac the worst school tragedy occurred on March 18. 1937.

at New London. when an explosion destroyed a schoolhouse. killing 294 persons. The almanac says a total of 174 children and two teachers were killed in a fire and panic at the Lakewood School in Collin wood, Ohio, Cleveland suburb, on March 4, 1908. Other school fires listed by the almanac were at Camden, S.

killing 76 persons on May 17, 1923, and at Hobart, killing 35 persons on Dec. 25, 1924. get out into the corridor to go The school had been inspected by the Fire Department onh a week ago and its safely precautions and equipment pronounced satisfactory. Mothers in tin? crowd fainted as they saw children jump from the second-story window and crumple on the ground below. The jam hampered the efforts of ambulances and fire equipment responding to the five-alarm blaze.

Archbishop Arrives. Among the first to reach the scene were the most Rev. Albert G. Meyer, newly appointed Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago. and Mayor Rkhard J.

Daley. The mayor called the fire terrible disaster for our At the morgue, ambulances were backed up 10 deep waiting to unload the small bodies. They were taken to the basement and parents, in groups of seven, were led down to attempt identification. my God. my boy, my sobbed John Jakowski as an attendant lifted a sheet from a charred body.

The fire had its share of heroes who dashed into the holocaust to save children petrified with fear. Three of the nuns of the Order oi the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary died with their students. Others formed chains, with children holidng onto each shirts and dresses, to lead them to safety Some Miss Nets. The fire broke out at 3 42 p. m.

F.S.T. There were 400 more children in an addition to the building which was not affected. The first indication of the blaze was black smoke seeping under ciass- Loom doors. Scores of children clambered to second floor window sills and jumped or were pushed to the ground. Firemen sent up ladders and spread nets.

A number of children jumped and missed. Bystanders and firemen tried to catch the children, some with their clothing and hair aflame, as they leaped. TTie fire was controlled at 4:19 p. m. It was not until then that the full extent of the tragedy was re-1 aliied.

Firemen under the glare of searchlights playing against the rod ruins began bringing out the victims by 20s and 30s. VATICAN SHOCKED BY FIRE DISASTER Heroic Nuns Face Death Continued From Page One. VATICAN CITY. Dec. News of the disastrous fire in the Roman Catholic elementarv school i in Chicago was received with shock and deep sorrow in the Vatican today, a high church spokesman said.

Pope John XXHI was informed of the fire by Secretary of State Cardinal-elect Domenico Tardini during the customary morning audience. Before withdrawing to his private chapel to pray for the victims the Pope instructed Cardinal Tardini to wire Papal condolences io Msgr. Albert Gregory Meyer, archbishop of Chicago. The secretary of state also was instructed to wire the apostolic delegate in Washington, Cardinal- elect Amleto Cigognani, asking that he leave immediately for Chi- cago or send an emissary to convey the Pope's sorrow to the families of the victims. shouted.

catch Someone broke the window with a book. Twelve children jumped. Spachura caught several of them, helped break the fall of thers. you, Spachura pleaded. The boy stood frozen.

Smoke blotted him from sight. Later, he was found, dead. Need Fire Escape. Tommy seventh grade class was singing when they heard the shouts of was the last one Tommy. 12, said.

was so thick on the second floor hall, I move so I ran bac into the room. I got up on the window sill but firemen told me not to jump. All I could think of was how look dead." Daniel Grimaldi. 32. was getting a haircut around the corner when he heard the screams.

He raced up to a floor hallway. "I opened one do or I even know what it was a door to as so hot I had to Jose it right he said. "Fire escapes. what we needed. Fire escapes along that north Ed Klock 74.

in retirement with a bad heart, saw the flames from his back porch. He ran to the building. One hair afire. He used his coat to smother the flames. Then he ran from comer CHRISTMAS CAROL CHICAGO, Dec.

S. one classroom of Our Lady of the Angels School firemen found books neatly stacked though scorched atop charred desks. One of the books the class had been reading was Charles Dickens Christmas 24 IN ONE ROOM Nearly half the Arctic is Soviet Russian territory. CHICAGO, Dee. literally trapped some of the victims of the fire in Our Lady of the Angels School.

Firemen found bodies in one room. Most of them were near the windows. The firemen reported a few of the victims still were at their desks. Apparently they had been too frightened to move. to corner, trying to help fallen children.

A short time later, he suffered a stroke and was taken to a hospital Black Cloud of Smoke. Mary Brock sat in her second floor classroom and saw smoke across the floor like turned to the boy next to me and said, a fire. He thought I just a silly girl. He poked me and said, make so much I jumped out of my seat and threw open the door. This big.

awful black cloud of smoke came in and the sister made us close the door and all get by the Margaret Chambers awoke with a cold. Her mother said. "Stay home from school today said Margaret. go. I don like being Mrs.

Chambers said. home in the morning. can go in the Margaret went in the afternoon died. Morgue Scene Of Deeo Grief Continued From Page One. her, eased her into a chair and administered smelling salts.

Nearby stood a couple in their 30s. Pale, dry of tears, they fingered a rosary, their lips wordlessly. The man had said earlier his daughter was not reported in any of the hclf-dozen hospitals to which many of the children had been taken. The couple came to the morgue, but had not looked at any of the unidentified children. They were praying she still might have only been injured, perhaps still in a hospital through some mixup in names.

Comforts Parents. Hovering among the parishioners was Father Joseph Ognibene. This 32-year-old priest, a native Chicagoan, came to Our Lady as the parish was known, in 19S2. It was his first assignment after or- I dination. He was to everyone.

It was his daily routine to walk about the schoolyard and near the entrances during recess, the noon lunch period and as the children left the building at 3 p. m. Monday, Father Ognibene met an old friend for lunch. They dallied at the table. Then he noticed it 1 would soon be time for his young parishioners to leave school for home.

was hurrying to the school in my he said. saw smoke coming from the upaer wirdows and drove my car the wrong way up a one-way street. I parked the car and ran into the building. children were leaving the building in an orderly fire-drill manner. Others were running about, screaming.

Then everything was ablaze. tried I wanted to It was the will of God." When the first bodies began arriving at the morgue. Father Joe was asked to make tentative IJvii- tificafion. He knew the greatest force of the fire was concentrated in the section housing Rooms 207, 208, 209, 211 and 212. Knew Many By Name.

Scores of these children he knew by name. All were his friends. Yet, when he had to identify them by name, or grade he could only whisper not sure of this little one I think this one was in 209 This boy was not sure." He pressed a thin, shaking hand to his temple. For a moment, it frinW idean that vmismy PRINTING tu tis Ohio St C-4919 Torro Indiana Jerry Jut Spirt BLOOD NEEDED CHICAGO, Dec. treating the injured in the Otir Ladv of the Anvets fire annealed to the ouh- to heln by donating blood.

Between 400 and 500 donors are needed immediately. Hospital officials urged that potential donors call one of four blood collection centers instead of the hospitals caring for the iniured. They are: i Chicago Blood Donors Service; Michael Reese Hospital Research Foundation: Beveriv Blood Center; and Interstate Blood Bank. appeared that he might collapse. An attendant slipped a bottle of salts to the priest's nostrils and he straightened up.

backing away from the pungent odor. Then he walked among the be- I reaved relatives. He sipped, talked with a weeping father, was the will of God. Stanley Your daughter is now' an angel in S23. Police said they arrested Jennings after they found him at Union Station.

Everett took Jennings to task for appearing at the railroad station in a drunken condition. The judge told Jennings that his appearance at the public meeting spot tends to travelers the wrong impression of our city." In other court matters, Jason Cain. 37, Bloomington, pleaded guilty to a similiar charge and was fined $23 Morris Baxter. 58. as sentenced to five days in jail and fined $18 when he pleaded guilty to public intoxication.

Henry Atterson, 50. West Terre Haute, was fined a total of $5.50 when he pleaded guilty to twin I charges of running a stop sign and operating a motor vehicle on an expired chauffeur's license. dmlmerrih OBIT TMC IUT INSURANCE JAIL TERMS IMPOSED FOR INTOXICATION Donald Lee Jennings. 20. 1128 Poplar street, was sentenced to 10 days in jail Tuesday when he pleaded guilty to a charge of pub' lie intoxication in an appearance before City Court Judge Edward S.

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