There are no words to describe the horror of the Chicago’s worst school fire. We should never forget the 92 children and 3 nuns who perished in this awful disaster. So with all due respect to their memory, I offer a link to my post a year ago.
https://chicagoandcookcountycemeteries.com/2018/11/30/never-witnessed-a-sight-so-terrible/
At 2:42PM on December 1, 1958 on the sixth floor of Chicago’s City Hall, William Bingham, the senior alarm operator within the Chicago Fire Alarm Office took a phone call from rectory housekeeper Nora Maloney.
Immediately, the loudspeaker at the firehouse at 3700 West Huron crackled with: “Engine 85 , truck 35, Squad 6, Battalion 18, Patrol 7, a still alarm , 3820 Iowa, 3-8-2-0 Iowa”. 
Those first firetrucks arrived within three minutes, despite that the fire was actually around the corner at 909 N. Avers.
In the meantime the fire alarm office received a second telephone call from Barbara Glowacki, the owner of a candy store who used the private telephone in her apartment behind the store to say she sees flames. Fifteen more phone calls soon followed.
A school was on fire! Continue reading ““Never witnessed a sight so terrible””
It was July 24th and for Willie Novotny age 7, school was out for the summer. On that cool and damp Saturday morning, Willie woke up well before dawn, much too excited to sleep. His nine year old sister Mamie, (sometimes called Minnie) woke up soon after. Willie quickly dressed in his Sunday-best clothes and came to the breakfast table. Their mother Agnes, age 35, likely prepared a traditional Czech breakfast of dumplings and eggs, dark rye bread, maybe a rohlík yeast roll with butter and jelly or maybe on a good day, a slice of salami or cheese. Their father, James (Vaclav), born Ponedraz Bohemia, also age 35 was the last to the table for his morning hot cup of coffee. He looked forward to spending a rare and wonderful day with his family.
About 6:00 am, the family of four would likely have left their house at 5527 West 24th Place in a blue-collar working class neighborhood of Czech’s and Polish. About 10 minutes later, and less than a half mile walk, they would have entered the Metropolitan West Side Elevated, 56th Avenue Station at about 2126 S. 56th Avenue (now Central Avenue).
They never returned home. Continue reading “When Chicago Cried”
They just don’t play well together. On two separate occasions both an airplane and a helicopter crashed into Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park . Another airplane went down into St. Casimir’s cemetery.
Over the years, there have been numerous airplane vs. cemetery crashes in other areas as well.
In 1927 in Lincoln Nebraska, two died in a cemetery crash. In 1928, an airplane crashed into a cemetery between Burbank and North Hollywood California. Another in 1950 in Mt. Olive Il. In 1955 a plane crashed into Forest Cemetery near Circleville Ohio. Two died in a cemetery near St. Louis in 1968. Eastlawn Cemetery near Bloomington Illinois had a plane crash into a graveyard in 1972. In 1999 a plane crashed into Mt. Ararat Cemetery in Farmingdale New York. 2006 Hillside Cemetery, Alberta Canada, Holy Cross Cemetery in Butte Montana, a jet plane in 2009. And many more.
Long before O’Hare Airport, the Orchard Place was the site of three cemeteries, which later were simply deemed “in the way” for airplanes. Only one still remains on airport property. The other two were removed in the name of progress.
With early aviation in Chicago, we had landing fields, airdromes, flying fields, aerodromes, Airmail stations, and aviation fields. The pilots were a daring bunch of daredevils with airplane races, some even known to have been rum running between Detroit and Chicago. Many pilots, however, died in crashes, some into cemeteries. Continue reading “Airplanes and Cemeteries don’t mix!”
Chicago and Cook County Cemeteries 