1 Casa Italia remembers Our Lady of Angels 1958 Fire on Dec 6, 2025- video 1 of 2

1 Casa Italia remembers Our Lady of Angels 1958 Fire on Dec 6, 2025- video 1 of 2 Casa Italia hosted a Day of Remembrance honoring the tragic fire that struck Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago in 1958. A panel discussion featured testimony from OLA fire survivors and community members; Linda Maffiola-Piatkiewicz was the chair of the event and the MC for the program. “This devastating fire not only took the lives of three nuns and 92 students but also fractured an entire ethnic community” Maffiola-Piatkiewicz says. “It brought unimaginable grief not only to the immediate OLA families, but to first responders, reporters, nurses, doctors, with the grief spreading across the nation. This fire was the catalyst that implemented school fire safety procedures, regulations and reform throughout the United States. ------------------------------------------------------ Part 1 included an excerpt from a 2011 video by John Kuenster, the now deceased co-author of the book “To Sleep with the Angels”; available on this channel at    • John Kuenster-Remembering Our Lady of the ...   Presentation also included excerpts from the WTTW 1 hour Documentary “Angels Too Soon”    • Angels Too Soon: The School Fire of '58 — ...   brary/# =Opening & Welcome - Linda Maffiola-Piatkiewicz Panel Discussion included remarks by the following in both part 1 and part 2 of our YT videos: =Matt Plovanich, Retired CPD Detective & Cook County Sheriff Investigator, OLA Survivor =Bill Quinlan, OLA Survivor =Professor Robert Lombardo, PhD, Loyola Professor of Criminology, Retired CPD Officer, OLA Survivor. The following presenters appear in part 2: =Margaret and Rosemary Orlando - The Orlandos were born a week AFTER the Fire. They reflected on their mother's experience giving birth in the same hospital that was caring for victims of the fire. They also talked about their father's Vesuvio Grocery Store, a prominent institution in the thriving OLA neighborhood. The sisters shared with the audience a board game based on the OLA neighborhood institutions. shops and hangouts =Video--Della Maffiola, testifies at Cook County Coroner's Inquest =Linda Maffiola-Piatkiewicz-Day of Remembrance November 1994-- =Tony Romano, Author of Where My Body Ends and the World Begins (2017) =Graceann Digioia -Our Lady of the Angels Mission Today =Terry Quilico, Casa Library Volunteer, OLA and School Safety (Terry ammends an error in his video statement, by correcting that 8 years after the fire he was not training with Squad 6 (which included first responders), but rather that he remembers being actually with Squad 2 (which included those who arrived later on the fire day). =Video 2 ends with Q & A Websites referred to in the presentation include: savingitalianamericanstories.com casaitaliachicago.org tinyurl.com/casalibrary https://missionola.com/ franoi.com/the-magazine/ And access to ppt used at the meeting is at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folder... --------------------------------------- Enjoy the video of this presentation, and we hope to see you at our next event. Italian Cultural Center tinyurl.com/casalibrary facebook.com/casalibrarychicago at CasaItaliaChicago.org CASA ITALIA LIBRARY [email protected] 1621 39th Avenue Stone Park, IL This video is meant to preserve some of the content, but is not meant to be a media presentation of the event. this presentation is in 2 videos =video 1 is 1hr 10 min =video 2 is 1hr 27min pt1 video1 OLA-Dec6-25-1.MOV SD HD via d cam 1h10min ----------------------------------------------------