My father is a firefighter and it is also a profession that
I would like to have so true firefighting stories have always gripped me. There
was a book I read quite a few years ago that I had borrowed from my father and
it has always stuck with me called “To Sleep with the Angels” by David Cowan
and John Kuenster. The book is about the tragedy at the Catholic elementary
school in Chicago named Our Lady of the Angels School. In December of 1958 a
fire tore through the school taking the lives of 92 children and 3 nuns.
Written as a narrative with firsthand accounts from children, nuns,
firefighters, and people from the community with a bit of a detective feel this
book was difficult to put down. One thing I really liked about this story is
the many tales of ordinary men and women, just people you would see at the
grocery store or working on cars, putting their safety and lives on the line to
try and save those in the school. They are prime examples of true heroes, not
like today where that title is thrown around far too liberally.
I feel
that everyone should read this book if for nothing else its tales of heroism.
This tragedy also helped develop better fire codes for schools. Unfortunately
sometimes it takes a tragedy to make people look more carefully at safety. I
will admit that is was hard to read at some points with how descriptive some
accounts were.
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