Greetings ~
March 4, 1908. The day began as most school days back then. Children woke and ate breakfast and grabbed their books and were gone. On the way to school they gathered as they walked and discussed current events. They talked about the upcoming weekend and how they planned to play ball in the vacant lot next to the dry goods store. They talked about how a friend had the flu and they hoped he would be back to school soon. And they discussed another friend's new dog. But what they didn't talk about was how to escape a school fire, what was the best way out. Why would they? In 1908 America, in the minds of the young, schools were pretty safe. But all that would change today. As a matter of fact, it would all change in about two hours. They had no idea that the breakfast this morning would be their last. They would never see their parents again. They would never sleep in their beds again.
That morning, 172 of these children would die in a most terrible way, FIRE! A fire would sweep through their school building and they would be trapped and unable to get out. Two of their teachers would join them in death while trying to rescue the little ones. It would be a day that Collinwood, Ohio, a part of Cleveland, would never forget. It would haunt parents, teachers, school officials, policemen and firemen for the rest of their lives. Those who got close and tried to pull children through the doors by their small arms but could not budge them and were forced to watch them burn alive three feet away would live with these images in their minds forever. Those who chose to go in after the fire was out to begin to retrieve bodies and body parts would always remember the sites of small terribly burned torsos, hands, faces, some with their clothing burned off. At one door of the building was a pile of small mangled bodies piled high in the hallway, children that tried hard to get through but had fallen and others piled up on top of them. It was truly a site that would be remembered by those who had to reach down and separate the kids who had been burned together in a pile of flesh.
The 1908 Collinwood School Fire would be remembered for sure. Rules and laws were changed to protect children in the future. But that would do these children and their parents no good. Like with most disasters, the event has to come first before the changes are made. Why is that?
This blog is dedicated to the 172 children that lost their lives that dark day. It is also dedicated to the two teachers who died with them trying to save them. And it is dedicated to those many people who would have to live the rest of their lives with the images of small helpless children surrounded by flames and smoke and being unable to be saved.
