To Sleep with the Angels by John Kuenster & JOHN KUENSTER

Author:John Kuenster & JOHN KUENSTER
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781615780211
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee

On Thursday the three coffins were carried across the street into the parish church for a solemn funeral Mass and eulogy delivered by Archbishop Meyer and Monsignor McManus, superintendent of schools. The coffins were carried by eighteen parishioners—six for each—followed by a color guard of one hundred police and firemen.

Thinking about what he would say, McManus concluded that the three sisters had given much of themselves to their students. In their tragic, untimely deaths, it seemed only fitting that they had stayed behind, dying alongside the children. When the fire broke out, the nuns didn’t think to save themselves. They didn’t run. They didn’t panic. They didn’t leave the children behind. They stayed with them, all the way through the fire to the ultimate journey from earth to heaven.

McManus decided not to question their judgment in trying to get the children out or having them stay put inside the rooms. Nobody could make that judgment unless they were actually inside those rooms and knew exactly what the conditions were like. The nuns may have opened the doors and saw the inferno in the hallway and figured there was no way out. Or maybe they were wrong in not trying to run for the stairs. McManus concluded it didn’t matter. What had been done had been done. Now, as a community, they must cling to their faith, to accept God’s will and go forward.

Approximately one thousand mourners packed the church that morning to hear McManus celebrate the funeral Mass. More than a hundred grieving nuns filled the pews in the first three rows. Because there was not enough room inside the church to accommodate everyone, many more mourners stood outside on the front steps and sidewalks. Loudspeakers were set up so that those standing in the cold, raw wind could share in the words of comfort.

In concluding his eulogy, McManus said, “Our three sisters died magnificent deaths…. There is no mother who could have been more unselfish, nor more heroic, than our three sisters who died with their children.”

When the service ended, the coffins were carried outside and loaded into hearses, then driven to Mount Carmel Cemetery in suburban Hillside, a few miles west of Chicago. There the three were lowered into their final place of rest, in a special plot reserved for the Sisters of Charity.

BY WEEK’S END, fourteen of the ninety-three school fire injured remained in critical condition with severe burns and fractured bones.

At St. Anne’s Hospital three critically injured children were clinging to life. One of them, Victor Jacobellis, lay in a coma, his prognosis poor. The nine-year-old fourth-grader had broken his neck and crushed his chest after jumping off one of the high windowsills in Room 210. The neurological damage had left him in a vegetative state. He was being kept alive by a respirator.

Nick and Emma Jacobellis had remained at their son’s bedside since the night of the fire. As the week progressed, Victor’s condition didn’t change. Finally, on Friday, doctors accompanied Nick and Emma to a quiet room at the end of the hall.

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