(sirens wailing) - [Narrator] Coming up, a devastating school fire that claimed 95 lives, shook a parish's faith, and stunned Chicago and the nation with sorrow.

- There wasn't a street that didn't lose a kid.

- And I kept asking God, "Why?"

- [Narrator] Survivors finally tell their story after 65 years.

- Black smoke billowed in like lightning would strike.

- It was so hot.

We were choking.

- I didn't think I was gonna die, I knew I was gonna die.

- Are you gonna jump?

Are you gonna burn to death?

- [Narrator] Some scars faded- - [Luciana] It was like third-degree burns here.

- [Narrator] But the emotional wounds never healed.

- Did I do things in life that merited my surviving?

- [Narrator] This is a story about tragedy and loss- - I couldn't save my younger sister.

That's something I had to live with my whole life.

- [Narrator] And a lesson in courage, the power of community, and the resilience of the human spirit.

- We want people to know what happened and why it happened.

- [Narrator] "Angels Too Soon."

Next, on Chicago Stories.

(thoughtful pensive music) (train rumbles) (audience cheering) - It is my honor to induct these gentlemen tonight into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

And it's about damn time!

Ladies and gentlemen, Journey.

(upbeat pop-rock music) (audience cheering) - [Narrator] Journey's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was the culmination of a long-standing dream.

The band had racked up 18 top-40 singles, including cherished anthems, like, "Don't Stop Believin'."

For keyboardist and songwriter Jonathan Cain, the dream began decades earlier in Chicago.

- Good evening.

I'd like to begin by thanking my father.

(audience cheering) He prophesied success from the time I was 8 years old after a terrible school fire, and later said to me, "Son, don't stop believing."

(audience cheering) - [Narrator] Even on rock's biggest stage, Cain never forgot the school blaze that took so many of his classmates' lives, lit a fire inside him, and sent him on his own journey to the Hall of Fame.

(fire raging) (sirens wailing) - This cold, sunny December 1st day would turn into this cloud of sadness and there was like a mushroom cloud over the school.

You know, it looked like a nuclear bomb went off.

(light thoughtful music) - [Narrator] Chicago was booming in 1958.

It was the world's busiest steel and rail center.

The nation's leading industrial bread basket and livestock area.

Mayor Richard J. Daley launched an ambitious plan to rebuild Chicago's downtown.

- There is a huge amount of energy going on in this city.

A lot of things are happening.

The population hits a high watermark, it's over 3 million.

- [Narrator] Nearly 2 million were Roman Catholic, making the Archdiocese of Chicago the largest in the country.

It guided a collection of 262 parishes, each covering one square mile of the city.

- Chicago has been called a city of neighborhoods, but it's also a city of parishes.

People knew where you were from by what parish you belonged to.

- [Narrator] One of Chicago's most vibrant parishes flourished on the city's West Side, Our Lady of the Angels.

(light reflective music) - They'd ask you where you're from and you'd say, "Our Lady the Angels."

- It was a close-knit parish.

You'd walk down the street and people would say hello.

- I remember playing at midnight and all the neighbors would watch each other.

- Everybody knew each other.

People helped each other.

- [Matt] It was absolute home for us.

- [Narrator] Our Lady of the Angels opened in 1894 to serve the neighborhood's Irish Catholics, but by 1958, the parish was largely Italian.

- I didn't know what a blond-haired person looked like until I moved outta that neighborhood.

I'd see them on TV, but... - Typical Catholic Chicago.

Everything was parish-oriented, and you felt a sense of belonging.

- [Narrator] Serge Uccetta's family immigrated from a small Italian town near Trieste after World War II.

They settled three blocks from the church and felt right at home.

- [Serge] Sundays were busy.

Our Lady of the Angels Church had masses every hour.

They were packed.

If you didn't get there early, you didn't get a seat, you had to stand.

- [Narrator] You could smell the pasta sauce strolling down the block after church.

- [Serge] Sunday afternoons were largely family get-togethers.

That was the feast of the day.

- [Narrator] Even Carlos Lozano's family, one of the few Mexican households in the parish, picked up the custom.

- We tried to eat it like once a week, you know?

We'd ask our mom, you know, "You gonna make spaghetti today?"

- [Narrator] Families in this working-class area lived in bungalows and traditional two and three-story apartment buildings.

(children chattering) - [Serge] A lot of the moms and dads either worked in factories or in services trades.

(family chattering) - [Narrator] Luciana Mordini's family was literally fresh off the boat when they moved down the block.

- It was overwhelming.

I mean, I'd never seen cars, I'd never seen buses.

And to walk out on Chicago Avenue and there were people everywhere.

- Chicago Avenue was comprised of a lot of shops, bakeries, some restaurants, but all Italian American.

- Oh, my gosh, that was heaven to us.

Everything we needed was there.

Our favorite bakery was Ancona Bakery.

They made the best Italian bread.

- [Serge] There was the Alamo Theater, which was a great old-time, Chicago movie theater.

- And if I did my chores and I got my quarter, I had money to go to the show then.

(laughs) (gentle thoughtful music) - [Narrator] Jonathan Cain lived above an Italian deli and found artistic inspiration not at the movies, but at church.

- I was in the choir and I really fell in love with the conversation in Latin with the priest.

The way the priest would sing and we'd sing back to him.

I thought, "God, I would love to do that."

- [Narrator] Kids could always count on a smile or a nickel from a young priest named Father Joe Ognibene.

- I love Father Joe.

Loved Father Joe.

I still do.

He was... (sighs) He was the nicest man.

- He could throw a football farther than any of us.

And the girls thought he was very handsome.

- [Narrator] While the church commanded Sundays, activities shifted to classrooms on weekdays.

- [Kathleen] Catholic education was so important, particularly to immigrant Catholics.

- My American cousin took me to meet my new teacher and I'm standing in front of the room and I wet my pants right in front of the whole class.

So that was my introduction to Our Lady of Angels.

I did not speak English until probably the beginning of 5th grade.

The nuns spoiled me.

- [Narrator] The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary were the foot soldiers of Chicago's parochial schools, dedicated to teaching and easy to spot in their long black habits.

- They taught in almost 40 schools.

I may be biased, but I would argue that the BVM sisters were some of the best teachers.

- [Narrator] But even the best teachers had their hands full after World War II when over 1,500 baby boomers swelled the school.

Some classrooms held up to 60 kids.

- We'd take turns sitting down (laughs) during class, and we'd have to get up, you know, and they say, "Okay, shift."

And then I get outta my seat and give my seat to somebody else.

And we probably did that three times, four times a day.

- Uniforms were required.

We had to wear a tie.

- [Rosalie] Navy jumpers with white blouses, yeah.

- The nuns were strict at that time.

You had to do what they said.

I mean, you know, they came around with that ruler.

(laughs) - Their initials were BVMs and we called them Black Veiled Monsters.

I know, it sounds terrible, but they weren't.

(laughing) But that was the worst thing we said about them, that wasn't too bad, I think.

- [Narrator] Sisters did their best to educate children who weren't always angels.

- [Luciana] The boys were bad.

I give those teachers a lot of credit.

- (laughs) I laugh because I guess I wasn't the... How should I...

The most well-behaved.

(light gentle music) - I happened to be really into rocket ships and astronomy, so I would bring in my little plastic rocket ship.

I shot it off in class and almost broke the clock.

(laughs) - The nuns, after school, they weren't going to their kids' soccer game.

We were their family, you know?

They were very close to us.

- [Narrator] The sisters were no strangers to hardship.

Their motherhouse in Dubuque, Iowa, burned to the ground in 1849, and they offered prayers to be spared from fire ever since.

Sister Geraldita Ennis, petite and witty, was one of two dozen teachers at Our Lady of the Angels.

- One of her mantras was always keep your soul ready, 'cause you never know when God's gonna come and take it.

- [Narrator] The building's 24 classrooms were spread across two wings connected by an annex.

Like many red-brick schoolhouses built in the early 1900s, the interior was made of wood.

Its floors, doors, and stairways polished to a gleaming perfection with flammable soaps and waxes.

- [Matt] We were so proud to see this varnished floors.

Beautiful.

- [Narrator] A fire inspector that October noted a second-floor stairwell lacked a fire door.

Chicago's Municipal Code required protective devices like fully enclosed stairways and sprinkler systems.

But the code did not apply to schools built before 1949, so Our Lady of the Angels was exempt from adopting improved safety measures.

- It's hard to fathom, and to use Catholic parlance, it was a sin.

It was a sin that had grievous consequences.

(fire alarm ringing) - [Narrator] The school conducted six fire drills that fall without a problem.

- Seemed so simple, so easy, until it really mattered.

(light gentle music) - It was the Monday after Thanksgiving.

I remember it was a sunny, cold day, very cold.

- It was just like any other day.

The only difference was when you're 10 years old, and it was December 1st, it was magical, because December was the month of Christmas.

- As it got closer to the dismissal time where we're looking at the clock on the wall, you know, (laughs) "It's almost there.

We're almost there."

- [Narrator] No one had any idea that a fire had started in a cardboard trash can filled with school papers in the basement.

(fire crackles) - I looked down at the floor and I saw a wisp of smoke.

I said, "Sister, there's smoke coming in under the door."

So she calmly walked over to the door... And she opened the door.

(smoke billowing) - And the blackest of black, black smoke billowed in like lightning would strike.

The smell was like burning rubber.

- It was so hot.

We were choking.

I wanted to get out.

I wanted to get air.

- Kids jumping on each other, walking on desks.

Some kids just sat at their desk and didn't move.

They were like paralyzed.

- People are all around me pushing and trying to get out the window, and... (gentle somber music) I'm sorry, I need a minute.

(fire whooshing) (fire crackling) - [Narrator] The fire had burned undetected for 20 minutes, billowing up a stairwell, feeding off wooden floors, walls, and ceiling tiles.

- The fire is a monster that seeks oxygen.

And when it got up to that second floor and there was no fire door, (fire whooshing) it just raged.

- [Narrator] Smoke, heat, fire, and toxic gases consumed the hallway outside second-floor classrooms of the north wing, where more than 300 students were finishing their day.

Evacuation routes that teachers and students had practiced using during fire drills were impassable.

Heat shattered glass transoms above classroom doors.

- We were trapped, and the only way out of this place was out the window or the firemen had to come.

(polishing cloths squeaking) - [Narrator] Three miles away at Engine 43's house, fireman Joe Murray was discussing a kitchen renovation when the alarm sounded.

(alarm ringing) Murray knew the address immediately.

(sirens wailing) - I went to school there.

In fact, my whole family, all my brothers and sisters went there too.

(sirens wailing) (tense music) (fire crackling) - [Narrator] In room 208, Sister Canice Lyng tried to calm her 7th graders while waiting for firemen to arrive.

- Sister started walking down the aisle, saying, "Stay in your seats," and this is the truth, I still remember to this day, "pray and God will save you."

And she passed me and she had the rosary beads on her habit and the beads kept hitting the desks as she passed.

I don't think I waited more than a couple of seconds when I jumped up and said, "I'm outta here.

"I'm not waiting to be saved.

What can I do to save myself?"

I just remember walking to the window and getting up and I think I was holding onto something and the next thing I knew, I fell out and there was like a little building and I fell on my leg and I hit my head.

- [Narrator] Luci's classmate, Serge Uccetta, slung his feet over the windowsill but hesitated to jump after seeing another boy hit the ground.

- It looked high.

No question about it.

Probably a good 20-some feet.

One of the janitors came by holding a short ladder, so I threw my glasses at him, and that got his attention and he put the ladder under my window.

(fire crackling) - [Narrator] Ron Sarno and his sister, Joanne, had been studying arithmetic just moments earlier in room 210.

- There was flames in the room already and there were balls of flame.

Kids were standing on the windowsills, jumping on each other, stepping on each other.

And that's when I thought, "I gotta get outta here."

I mentioned to my sister that I think the only way out is if we jump and she didn't want to jump.

And at some point, my sister and I, with all the panic and chaos, we lost each other.

I either was pushed out or I fell out of the window.

And I recall doing a somersault in the air, seeing the first-floor window go by real quick, and I landed on my feet and fell backwards.

(fire raging) - [Narrator] In room 212, 10-year-old Carlos Lozano struggled to pull himself over the sill.

- I can't see anything.

It's total darkness.

And I can't breathe.

And at that moment I thought, "I'm going to die."

(fire crackling) So I remember inching myself forward and forward, and then I fell out of the window head first.

And I remember seeing the ground come up fast.

I fainted.

(fire crackling) - [Narrator] In room 207, Sister Geraldita raced to unlock a back door leading to a fire escape.

- She pulled her vestments apart, went to look for the keys.

It was complete panic on her when she'd realized she had forgotten the keys.

- [Narrator] Sister Geraldita led students in the rosary as smoke enveloped the room.

She threw a plastic flower pot at the rectory window to summon help and told the students to lie on the floor as heat overwhelmed them.

- Kids were screaming for mommy and daddy and God to save them.

I think a lot of us felt our lungs were gonna explode.

I didn't think I was gonna die, I knew I was gonna die.

My spirit actually felt like it had left my body.

I was about three feet up.

And I said, "In about two minutes, "this body's gonna be burned to a char, "but my spirit is gonna be intact."

It was one of the most euphoric experiences of my life.

(fire crackling) With that, there was a whoosh by the back door.

That back door opened.

- [Narrator] It was the school janitor with another key.

He and a priest guided the class to a fire escape.

(tense dramatic music) (fire crackling) Hundreds of students in the south wing had safely evacuated by the time firemen arrived.

(water hissing) They battled flames engulfing the north wing while parents who had come to pick up their children watched helplessly.

(siren wailing) - It looked like a nuclear bomb went off.

Smoke's coming out crazy.

Flames are leaping up.

A gal had her hair on fire and she had jumped.

Just laying there in a puddle of blood.

(sirens wailing) (people chattering) - [Matt] These were all kids that I knew and recognized and walked to school with.

It was horrible.

- [Narrator] Firemen were forced to rescue children from windows.

Joe Murray climbed into room 210, where Concetta Bellino gasped for air.

- Someone grabbed me.

The ladder wasn't tall enough but he somehow got me and he put me on the back of the ladder.

He says, "You got it?"

I just grabbed a hold of them and caught them and stuff and did what I had to do to save them and what I couldn't do, I couldn't do.

(sparse tense music) - [Narrator] The fire had been raging for more than a half hour when it finally burned through the tar-covered roof.

(bystanders chattering) - I heard...

I heard timbers caving in.

(roof crashing) - [Narrator] The sound of the roof collapsing thundered across the parish, changing Our Lady of the Angels, and hundreds of lives forever.

- It was obvious that the roof caved in on all those kids.

You know, I knew that because of the sound.

And you heard just these screams.

(gentle somber music) - Mothers and fathers crying out for their kids.

There was just so much weeping and so many screams.

- [Narrator] Murray and other firefighters breached the walls of second-floor classrooms only to discover they were too late.

In room 212, several 5th graders slumped at their desks with hands folded in prayer, asphyxiated by toxic gas.

In room 210, lifeless 4th graders clung to Sister Seraphica Kelley's corpse.

In classroom 208, they found the badly burned body of Sister Canice draped across her 7th graders.

A reporter said it was the first and only time he saw Mayor Daley, a father of seven children, cry in public.

More than 200 firefighters from across the city responded to the blaze.

- They rescued 160 kids.

They did an amazing job.

(gentle solemn music) (bystanders chattering) - [Narrator] But it offered little solace to firemen, many of them World War II veterans, who were haunted by images of children they couldn't save.

- What could we say?

You couldn't describe what we had seen.

Nobody could.

These were vibrant young people and we had lost them.

(siren wailing) (light pensive music) - [Narrator] Winnie Collins was a 19-year-old nursing student working at St. Anne's Hospital when the first ambulance arrived.

- Parents were coming.

Just hundreds of them were coming.

- [Narrator] St. Anne's admitted three nuns and 34 children, many whose parents had searched all afternoon for them.

- The smoke came over there and we couldn't breathe.

The air wouldn't come in.

So kids started jumping out the window.

And then I decided to jump out, too.

- A fireman came and he got the ladder and he led us out on the ladder.

- [Narrator] 75 students suffered broken bones or burns, though some children were too badly hurt to even tell nurses their names.

- What do I remember most of all?

The smell.

The smell of burns.

It's not a good smell.

(gentle somber music) - I was burned in my right arm from holding onto the frame of the window.

It was from my elbow to part of my back.

It was third-degree down here, and then second and first-degree as they go back.

- [Narrator] Parents who couldn't find their kids at hospitals made the unimaginable trip to the Cook County morgue to identify the bodies of their sons and daughters.

- They took Father Joe and I into the room where all these kids were covered on these tables.

And then Father started to cry and breaking down and then he went out into the area where all the parents and people were that were there identifying their children and crying and everything.

He tried to comfort them.

- [Interviewer] Here at the morgue tonight, Father, of course, it's a scene of almost unbelievable grief.

What can you tell a parent when he comes down to identify his child?

- Have a lot of faith.

It's happened.

It's the will of God.

And this is where their faith plays a very important part in their life to try to understand why.

We'll never know the reason why most probably, but I think that the good Lord will help them through this tragedy.

(thoughtful solemn music) - [Narrator] One mother observed, "It looked like there was blood on the moon that evening."

Ron Sarno lost not one, but two siblings.

- My brother, William.

We used to call him Billy and my sister, Joanne.

Billy had a tremendous talent in art.

Joanne was more of a tomboy.

Her gift was, she made friends real easy.

Everybody loved Joanne.

It's something I had to live with my whole life... Well, until I accepted it, that I couldn't save my younger sister.

- [Narrator] The death toll reached 92 children and three nuns, the third deadliest blaze in city history, surpassed only by the Great Chicago Fire and the Iroquois Theatre tragedy.

- There wasn't a street that didn't lose a kid, sometimes more than one.

- [Narrator] Kids playing marbles on the sidewalk one day were gone the next.

Thousands attended a mass for 27 children at a National Guard Armory.

(gentle somber music) (bell tolling) - [Clergyman] We have seen hope in the tear-stained faces of the bereaved.

As I knelt in prayer too, and communion with Him.

- [Narrator] Thousands more filled the parish church to mourn the nuns who had died: Sister Canice Lyng, Sister Clare Therese Champagne, and Sister Seraphica Kelley.

The nuns were buried at Mount Carmel, not far from their students' graves at an adjacent cemetery, Queen of Heaven.

- It was a tragedy for the BVM community all over the United States, and particularly back at the motherhouse in Dubuque, Iowa.

The sisters there sent a telegram talking about how they were stunned with sorrow.

- [Narrator] Sisters arranged for students to resume classes at a neighboring parish one week after the fire, but getting back to some type of routine proved nearly impossible.

- The first thing everybody did, we all went to the windows to look at how far the jump was.

- Kids were, like, losing it.

Bad behavior, just interrupting.

Just, it was like "One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

We were all crazy.

- I remember walking in that classroom and there were only 11 of us left out of 55.

So we knew the rest of the children that were in our classroom were either in the hospital or dead.

- [Narrator] Carlos Lozano and Luci Mordini spent most of December in the hospital.

- So it turned out that I had a fractured pelvis.

There was a photo of me in the paper.

(laughs) They propped me and took my photo with the rosary in my hand.

(laughs) We had the Cisco Kid visit us, and Bart, from the TV series called "Maverick."

- [Narrator] Luci cheered up at the sight of a familiar face, Father Joe.

- He would come to the hospital in the middle of the night and open our doors and I would remember opening my eyes and he would just, like, wave.

He was so concerned about all of us.

- [Narrator] Luci went home on Christmas Eve.

She was still recovering from burns but discovered the emotional scars could be even more painful.

- I would be at church at Our Lady of Angels and my scars would be noticeable and you'd hear people whispering, "Adessa c'est un angelo."

"God saved her."

I hated that, and I started wearing long-sleeved shirts.

- [Narrator] For many, the holidays would never be the same.

The sweet scent of burning yule logs triggered painful memories.

(Narrator) The smoke never seemed to go away.

Something Jonathan Cain discovered when students retrieved winter coats they had left behind on the day of the fire.

- So I went to get the bomber jacket that I wore that day, and it had all my father's army patches on it.

I was very proud of it.

It reeked.

So I came home, Mom said, "Where's your jacket?"

I said, "I can't wear that, Mom.

Can't wear that."

- [Narrator] Hardly anyone in the parish, neither parents nor priests nor sisters, seemed willing to discuss the fire.

- "Don't talk about it.

"Don't talk about it to anybody."

It was like, "Why?"

- There wasn't counseling available to kids who felt traumatized by the event.

Back in those days, that wasn't done as much.

I mean, that's the way things were.

It's unfortunate.

- It's like squeezing a balloon.

You squeeze it down here, it gets big up here, squeeze it here, it's gonna come out.

- [Narrator] The loss of so many innocent lives led some children to question their faith.

- And I kept asking God, "Why?

"Why did they have to die like that?"

It just seemed unfair.

It seemed cruel.

I was haunted by that.

- [Ron] How does God will 90-something kids and three nuns to die?

What kind of God is that?

I was confused.

- They would say that God took the best kids.

"They're little angels now.

God needed them."

"Why did He need them?"

That's what I would say.

"Why did He need them?"

(gentle somber music) - [Narrator] Parish nuns and priests put on a brave front but were suffering just as profoundly.

- I remember Sister Geraldita saying, "God, how could you let that happen?

"Those were good kids."

And then I heard some of the girls scream, and I looked back and she had knocked her habit off.

The girls ran out of the room, two nuns came in, and Sister Geraldita was still mumbling to herself that she wants to see God about this.

And the two nuns said, "Sister, "we're gonna take you to see God now."

And that was the last we saw of her.

- [Narrator] Nuns made convenient scapegoats, even those who acted heroically like Sister Davidis Devine.

She spoke to reporters after being treated for burns.

- I turned around to see if there was anyone in back of me and I saw the room was in flames.

- [Narrator] Sisters were criticized for telling students to stay at their desks and pray.

Accused of trying to save childrens' souls rather than their lives.

- The sisters did the best they could under terrible circumstances that they never foresaw coming.

(thoughtful solemn music) - They died trying to protect their kids, period.

- [Narrator] The Cook County Coroner's Office led an official investigation into the cause of the fire nine days later.

- What can I say?

I mean, it happened, but- - You have the right to say anything you want to.

- I don't want it to happen again.

If you're going to have other children, if you're going to send other children to school, you don't wanna be afraid again.

Everybody has their empty feeling within themselves, and we just don't want it to happen again in the future.

- Maybe out of this may come a lot of good.

- That's the one thing that I hope, that my son didn't lose his life for nothing.

- [Narrator] Speculation arose that students had been smoking in a stairwell.

- They brought the police in and we were questioned by the police.

"Do you know who smoked?

"Did you smoke?

"Did you see anybody loitering around?"

- We took police crime lab photographs of the scene.

We obtained physical evidence such as the step from the stairwell that led down into the area where the fire appeared to have started.

- [Narrator] The investigation concluded without providing any real answers, but the National Fire Protection Association issued a scathing report one year later, accusing authorities of housing children in "fire traps."

- There was no fire alarm that was connected to anything.

It was just the bell that rang in the building.

No sprinklers.

The fire extinguishers were 7 feet where no one could get to them.

- [Narrator] A private inspector made a startling conclusion about the cause of the fire.

He called it arson.

But the public never learned about his findings.

- Mom was angry at the church for not giving us more information and, you know, it just seemed like they wanted to wash their hands with it, you know?

- [Narrator] The trail went cold for years until law enforcement questioned a 13-year-old boy about setting fires in Cicero, a Chicago suburb.

The boy took a polygraph test and confessed to starting another fire when he was a 5th grader at his previous school, Our Lady of the Angels.

- He said, "I asked the teacher for permission "to go to the bathroom.

"Instead of going to the bathroom, "I went to the school basement.

"I found a 55-gallon cardboard drum."

He said, "I threw four or five matches, "waited until it really started going, "and then I went back to my classroom."

(fire crackling) - [Narrator] Judge Alfred Cilella dismissed the boy's confession in family court, ruling it had been improperly obtained.

- I want to be very sure in this case, I took the entire matter under advisement.

- In my opinion, from everything I've read, I feel he was the one.

I think the criminal justice system has an obligation to protect innocent people from people like this.

The criminal justice system failed.

- [Narrator] Cilella exonerated the boy of starting the school blaze but found him guilty of setting four other fires in Cicero.

The judge ordered the youth sent to a juvenile detention facility.

He denied setting the school fire before passing away in 2004.

- If this person did it, he should have somehow paid for it.

But maybe he did.

He probably had his own torment.

- [Narrator] The official cause of the fire remains undetermined.

The archdiocese paid $3 million in wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits.

Mayor Daley set up a fund with contributions from all over the world to cover victims' medical costs.

- I remember my father saying, you know, "This doesn't bring my kids back."

- [Narrator] The sad truth is that many other schools, parochial and public, lacked adequate safety devices.

The fire might have happened at any one of them, but it was Our Lady of the Angels that suffered.

(tense thoughtful music) The tragedy led to a nationwide overhaul of fire safety laws at schools.

- I don't think that's quite redemption.

But it is grace, a grace that came out of a tragedy.

- [Narrator] Not a single child has died in a Chicago school fire since.

- Those kids, their lives weren't in vain.

They made great change happen.

- [Narrator] The archdiocese built a new school with steel, glass, and reinforced concrete on the ashes of the old one.

Despite the best intentions to move forward, a profound sense of loss settled over the once-vibrant parish.

- The whole neighborhood was like a cloud of gloom went over it all.

People walked around like zombies, I swear to God.

They looked so unhappy.

There wasn't a happy face anywhere.

- It was too painful for my mother and father to stay there.

Too many memories.

I think a lot of people moved out of that neighborhood then.

- [Narrator] The exodus grew when the parish's ethnic makeup shifted in the 1960s.

- As many of the Italian Americans, like the Irish before them, moved out of the parish, as new people moved in, there were resentments.

This was combined with just racial unrest and demographic change in the city more generally.

But I think the parish, as it was on that day in 1958, it was really the end.

(water splashing) (gentle thoughtful music) (children laughing) - Go!

(ball thuds) (people yelling) - We grew up there.

My mom and her generations had grown up there.

Was our neighborhood and our parish and we hated to leave.

- [Narrator] Father Joe moved on, too, assigned to several other parishes in the Chicagoland area.

But he never forgot Our Lady of the Angels.

He passed away at 77.

- He was heartbroken by what happened.

I think it changed him for the rest of his life.

- [Narrator] Though the fire broke Sister Geraldita's heart, too, her mind healed from her nervous collapse.

She resumed teaching another 30 years in Iowa before passing away in 1997.

- [Narrator] Sisters continued to teach at Our Lady of the Angels until 1999 when the Catholic school closed due to low enrollment.

The church was crumbling and the neighborhood fell on hard times.

A survivor moved a memorial honoring fire victims from the school to Holy Family Church for safekeeping.

- The pedestal was made out of granite, and that had the kids' names and the nuns' names on it.

- [Narrator] Our Lady of the Angels would rise from the ashes once more.

(light gentle music) The archdiocese recruited Father Robert Lombardo to create a mission outreach to the needy in 2005.

Today, the Mission of Our Lady of the Angels distributes clothing, provides youth services, and runs food pantries serving more than 3,000 families a month.

- You want my help?

- Yeah.

- Okay, watch your step, honey.

- We really believe that this is sacred ground because of the tragedy that took place.

There's always new life, and so, even though there was a tragedy, from that good can still spring up.

- [Nun] Hi, do you want parsley?

(people chattering) - [Narrator] Slowly but surely, Father Lombardo and a devoted team of Franciscans renovated the buildings of the former parish, including the church, which was re-dedicated in 2012.

(light gentle music continues) - The church, it looks exactly like it did back in 1958.

(church bell tolling) You go there, you just feel the love around you.

They've been doing a miraculous job.

Miraculous.

- [Narrator] Our Lady of the Angels suffered an unthinkable tragedy on December 1st, 1958.

The fire tore apart families and a parish, but it also bound survivors.

Many alumni gather on anniversaries to remember their teachers and classmates.

- We became closer, I think, after the fire.

I think we were typical kids before, carefree and all this stuff.

But after the fire, we became caring.

Caring for each other.

- [Narrator] Rosalie Guzzo even found an autumn love at a school reunion.

- (laughs) Well, I ended up marrying Bill O'Brien, the love of my life.

He was in my class.

And he got out the same window I did, but he got out sooner.

He says, the only thing that happened with the school fire, it brought us together later in life.

- [Narrator] Concetta Bellino also married a classmate who escaped the fire, demonstrating these are truly ties that bind.

Like many survivors, she recalls the blaze as if it was yesterday.

- Sometimes, just thinking about it, I feel I'm back in that room, and just the thought of trying to get out again, you know, like, (breathes deeply) "I got out."

You know?

- [Narrator] Though each person experienced the fire differently, a common thread emerged.

- When we were starting to have our reunions, we started asking everybody what they were doing.

We heard so many nurses, firemen, a few doctors.

A lot of us were in professions that were extending their help to people.

- [Narrator] Annette Danesi worked in a hospital and police department.

Matt Plovanich served 43 years in law enforcement, most of them as detective.

- I wanted to give back.

And I looked at how the firemen and the policemen reacted that day, and it was service.

It's in your blood after that.

- [Narrator] Carlos Lozano also became a Chicago police officer, but it took him 65 years to discuss the fire with his family.

He says the trauma affected his relationships and made him question his self-worth.

(light thoughtful music) - You know, did I do things in life that merited my surviving?

Sometimes I would like to think so, sometimes I realize, no.

- [Narrator] Serge Uccetta earned an engineering degree and became a NASA contractor, a fitting career for a boy who had set off rockets inside his 7th grade classroom.

- It's difficult at my age, even now, thinking back to the kids that I knew that are gone and the fact that they haven't lived a life like I've lived and seen their own kids grow up and things like that.

That they lost out on that experience in life so early.

It's tragic.

- [Narrator] When Luci Mordini started her career, she feared working in offices above the third floor but overcame her anxiety to become a project manager at a cosmetics firm.

- It made me speak my mind.

It made me go for the things I wanted to go for.

It made me not be afraid.

- [Narrator] Ron Sarno struggled for years to make sense of his brother and sister's deaths.

(birds chirping) - A lot of guilt.

I had a lot of self-pity and a lot of fear.

From that day on, I always had the fear of dying and dying in a fire.

Wherever I would go, I would stare at the door, waiting for the smoke to come in.

- [Narrator] Sarno raised two children and ran a successful furniture business, but numbed his pain with drugs and alcohol.

He got help and sponsored dozens of other people in need.

- I'm 35 years sober, and that's why I keep going to meetings.

For two reasons, to stay sane myself, and to, if I can help somebody every now and then, that helps me.

(upbeat rock music) (audience cheering) - [Narrator] Jonathan Cain also struggled to make sense of the tragedy but found peace through his keyboard.

- Music healed me.

It healed me in a big way.

I found freedom.

I found escape.

Joy.

♪ Strangers waitin' ♪ - [Narrator] The hardships Cain endured, and his father's reassuring words, inspired the lyrics to Journey's classic anthem, "Don't Stop Believin'."

- I'd lived through a fire, but there is a fire burning now inside to be something, to prove to Dad that I was worth it, maybe to prove to God.

♪ Don't stop believin' ♪ - [Narrator] Though touring often kept him on the road, Cain's mind never strayed far from his childhood parish, nor the fire that sparked his Hall of Fame music career.

♪ Don't stop ♪ (audience cheering) (audience applauding) - [Narrator] He returned to the church with a song he had written to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the tragedy.

An intimate moment captured on cell phone.

(emotive piano ballad music) - [Jonathan] I spent two weeks practicing, so I wouldn't break down.

The title is "The Day They Became Angels."

♪ The day they became angels ♪ ♪ They left us wondering why ♪ ♪ Young souls joined God's departed ♪ ♪ Leaving no time for goodbye ♪ I'm real proud of it.

I like it.

♪ And all that's left are memories ♪ - [Narrator] Though the church had been restored to its former glory, survivors had one final job, to return the memorial honoring fire victims to Our Lady of the Angels.

She had been kept safe nearby at Holy Family Church for two decades, until a special ceremony in May 2022.

- [Rosalie] They mounted the statue on the front of a firetruck and brought her to Our Lady of the Angels with the horns blaring (horns blaring) (sirens wailing) and a procession of firetrucks taking her back.

(emotive piano ballad music continues) - So she has a home back where she started from, and we're so happy about that.

- We as survivors must never forget, all of us were surrounded in an umbrella of grace and tragedy.

(Jonathan singing) - [Ron] It's Chicago history.

I would like my brother, my sister, the children that died, the three nuns, I would like their legacy to go on.

♪ The day they became angels ♪