OFFICIALLY the cause of the Our Lady of the Angels School fire is still listed as “undetermined.” The fire remains an open case with Chicago authorities, but because of the passage of time and a lack of interest, it is one that likely will never be solved. The archdiocese of Chicago has long since closed its book on the fire. Officially the church still regards the fire as “accidental.” Because of this official curtain of ignorance, the fire has become an enigma whose mystery has deepened with each passing year. Secretiveness has worked against investigators seeking a solution to the case, as though human beings cannot stand being told the truth. Unofficially investigators have long held to the belief that someone intentionally set the school fire—probably never dreaming what the result would be.
Arson is one of the most difficult crimes to prosecute; a successful prosecution virtually requires catching the arsonist in the act. A sad yet interesting footnote to the school fire story is that if it were ever proven legally that the Our Lady of the Angels fire was intentionally set, as we assert, it would go down as the worst case of mass death by arson in American history. As of this writing, that sobering statistic was recorded in 1990, when a thirty-seven-year-old love-spurned Cuban refugee set fire to the Happy Land Social Club in the Bronx, New York, killing eighty-seven people.
Since the school fire, the neighborhood encompassing Our Lady of the Angels parish has changed dramatically. The mass exodus of whites from this and other West Side Chicago neighborhoods was accelerated in part by the actions of unscrupulous real estate agents—both in and out of the community—who by the late 1960s began in earnest a campaign of “panic peddling.” Playing upon the fears of white homeowners, realtors pressured residents into selling their homes quickly and cheaply as large numbers of lower- to middle-class African-American families began moving into the area from the dense, decaying ghetto neighborhoods to the east. Later, when middle-class black families began moving out, the neighborhood quickly fell into decay, neglect, and poverty. It now features boarded-up windows, burned-out and abandoned buildings, and vacant lots. Gangs, drugs, and violence—more than fire—threaten the children who live there today.
In 1990, because of a decline in parishioners, the Chicago archdiocese decided to close Our Lady of the Angels Church and merge it with a neighboring Catholic parish to the west. The parish is now known as St. Francis of Assisi–Our Lady of the Angels. The new Our Lady of the Angels School remained open, however, educating children in both communities. And though its student population was diminished greatly from the late 1950s, the school nevertheless stood as an oasis of prayer and learning for the mostly African-American, Hispanic, and Asian children who attended it.
In 1999 the Chicago Archdiocese closed Our Lady of the Angels School, citing financial troubles and declining enrollment. That same year the parish convent was converted into a battered women’s shelter, and a black granite memorial listing the fire victims’ names was placed inside the school lobby by survivors and their families. Forty-one years after the fact, it became distinguished as the only monument ever to grace the disaster site and expressly acknowledge the fire.
Another solemn, visible reminder of the school fire tragedy can be found near the fork of two roads running through Queen of Heaven Cemetery just outside Chicago, where twenty-five of the school fire dead lie buried beneath simple, flat grave markers. A long granite monument, erected in 1960 by Monsignor Cussen, stands over the markers, and chiseled into the monument and looking down over the graves is the image of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Angels. Also chiseled into the granite are the names of three nuns and ninety-two students. Occasionally, an elderly man or woman may be seen kneeling and setting flowers over the small grey markers.
The shrine lies in the shadow of pine trees that rustle gently in the breeze.
The air in the cemetery smells fresh and clean. The silence is broken by the chattering of birds flitting among the trees and by the noise of a power lawnmower in the distance.
Inscribed at the base of the monument are the words: “Our Lady of the Angels Pray for Us.”
Sometimes, when the sun is just right, the words glisten.