Rev Vince wrote: In 1968 and 1969, my buds and I dated the entire
Alvernia classes of 69 and 70.
Susan answered: Sorry I can't say the same! Actually when I run into
classmates in the
past years, we find many of us are of the same persuasions and would
have liked to have been in your shoes!
the Rev replies: well, who knew (I didn't) that I was gay then so maybe
that was why we all so cheerfully changed partners before anyone got too,
too close.
Sue further says: We still say that' why they shut
the school down. HAHAHA! I graduated in 75 so I was a bit behind your
"Alvernia Dating Frenzy." Sorry for those JMDLers, and please excuse
Vince and I for indulging in a bit of Chicago nostalgia.
the Rev reflects: If the whole JMDL knew Alvernia High School, they all
would have moved to Chicago. I suspect that every single student at
Alvernia was a Joni Mitchell fan.
Vince also wrote: Our Lady of the Angels is a major event in the life of
every person who was a grammar school student in Chicago in 1958, with the
Our Lady of Angels fire of 1 December 1958, when 93 kids and 3 nuns burned
to death. Susan, were you there when the fire happened?
Susan shares: I was not even 2 years old, but I do have a very faint short
memory of
the event as it only began to take place. My brother Tony was at the
back window pointing and saying "Smoke Mommy Smoke." That's all I
remember sitting on the kitchen floor and the fear that exuding from my
mother. See I used to have a great memory, but years of abuse ... oh
well. I lost a cousin in the fire, <Vince intervenes, sorry to hear that,
what was the cousin's name? I have a listing off the students killed, in a
book by a survivor called 'The Fire That Will Not Die." > with a couple
others who were there but completely unharmed. I also remember a little
girl from down the street, Helen also perished in the blaze. Vince you
are so right about authority! Many died because the nuns told children to
bow their heads and pray till they were rescued!
Vince comments: after the tragedy of the fire that neighborhood became one
of the first North side communities that were redlined, broken up by
blockbusters who played the race card to drive whites out, selling their
homes at any price to flee incoming blacks for the lily white suburbs.
Racism was so alive and well. My neighborhood was further north and west
and surely not immune to the racial hatred that Susan has written about.
One of the most painful events of my life was watching Mayor Washington
being mobbed, on Palm Sunday, by racists outside of the church that was my
grandparents' parish church. The stories of Northwest side racism are
plentiful and horrible and I can only say, with Frank Zappa, "I'm not black
but there are a whole lottta times I wish I could say I weren't white."
Susan's comments on the bigotry of that part of Chicago are alas, well
founded.
Susan continues: I remember them rebuilding the school,
you couldn't burn that baby down if it was in the middle of the Great
Chicago Fire! And man oh man, you had better take fire drills seriously
or you might get burned at the stake! I saw more kids get whacked by
nuns in fire drills than, than 10 St. Valentine's Day Massacres put
together. OLA was located on Iowa (Thomas is very close) between Hamlin
and Avers.
Vince closes with: every school, fire drills became monthly mandatory and
there was utter seriousness about them. At Lane Tech, my high school, the
guys swim classes (they swam nude) were marched outside for the fire drills
- there were no exceptions after the Our Lady of the Angels fire.
The church has now been sold to a non Roman congregation. A generation
does not know. The fire was started by kids smoking at the bottom of a
stairwell. However, since it could never be admitted that grammar school
age Catholic students smoked, it was blamed on a short in the wiring of a
the school Christmas tree lights.
So live Christmas trees were banned in public buildings in Chicago and
within three years, no one that I knew had a live tree in their house,
either. We all believed the tree/lights/short story... that was what was
drummed into us. The first time I saw a live tree in a public building was
when I was 23, on internship at a church in Muskegon, in Michigan, my
adopted state, and they had two! It traumatized me! I kept staring at
those trees every moment I was in the church building, just waiting for
them to burst into flames! I have now relaxed to allow live greens in the
church but with no lights.
And I always pause on 1 December to remember those poor children burned to
death while they prayed for deliverance in obedience to the nuns, and for
the nuns who did the only thing they know how to do, obey the rules, and
that was wait for an answer to prayer or an "evacuate the school" alarm
(which never went off as it had a short in it).
Sorry for those who have been bored by these reminisces, and thank you for
your patience and endurance to any who read all the way through.
(the Rev) Vince
