To Sleep with the Angels - (Illinois) by David Cowan & John Kuenster (Paperback)

About the Book

The story of one of the deadliest fires in American history that took the lives of ninety-two children and three nuns at a Catholic elementary school in Chicago. "An absorbing account...a tale of terror."-New York Times Book Review.

Book Synopsis

The story of one of the deadliest fires in American history that took the lives of ninety-two children and three nuns at a Catholic elementary school in Chicago. "An absorbing account...a tale of terror."-New York Times Book Review.

From the Back Cover

On a grey winter day in December 1958, one of the deadliest fires in American history took the lives of ninety-two children and three nuns at a Catholic elementary school on Chicago's West Side. The blaze at Our Lady of the Angels School shocked the nation. It left many families physically and psychologically scarred for life, destroyed a close-knit working-class neighborhood, and sowed popular suspicion of the church hierarchy and city fathers. No one was ever prosecuted for setting the fire; to this day it remains an officially unsolved mystery. In To Sleep with the Angels, two veteran journalists tell the moving story of the fire and its consequences. David Cowan and John Kuenster have worked for years, talking with hundreds of sources and ferreting our documents to reconstruct a minute-by-minute narrative of the tragedy and the sorrows of its aftermath. It is a story of ordinary people caught up in a mind-numbing disaster. In gripping detail, the authors describe the fear, desperation, and panic that prevailed among children, teachers, firefighters, and parents in and around the stricken school building on that cold Monday afternoon. Beyond the flames, the story of the fire at Our Lady of the Angels became an enigma whose mystery has deepened with time: its cause was never officially explained despite evidence that it had been intentionally set by a troubled student at the school. The authors reveal for the first time this youngster's "confession" and the decision by a local judge not to pursue the case against him. The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago also refused to press an investigation, preferring to label the fire a terrible "accident".

Review Quotes

A fascinating read about an American tragedy that never should be forgotten.

A journalistic account of tragedy...haunting and honest.

Detailed reporting and straightforward writing...an absorbing account.

Every parent, teacher, and school administrator should read this story of a tragic loss of life.

Gripping...even today there stands no memorial to those who died, perhaps this beautiful remembrance can be that memorial.

About the Author

David Cowan has been a newspaper reporter in Illinois and is now a fireman and independent journalist who lives in the Chicago area. John Kuenster is executive editor of Century Publishing Company in Evanston, Illinois, and a former staff writer and columnist for the Chicago Daily News.