Joseph Ognibene, 77; Priest Was a Hero at Deadly School Fire
Father Joseph Ognibene, 77, a Roman Catholic priest who was among the heroes in a 1958 Chicago school fire that killed 92 children and three teachers, died of cancer Friday in Rolling Meadows, Ill.
On Dec. 1, 1958, Ognibene, then a parish priest, ran into the school after seeing smoke, according to a book about the fire, “To Sleep With the Angels.”
He helped lead children to safety, either by directing them downstairs or carrying them. Accounts of the fire describe how he and Sam Tortorice, a neighbor, swung students trapped in one classroom to an adjoining classroom.
After the fire, Ognibene was asked to identify victims at the morgue and spent time in hospitals working with the injured.
“I would wake up in the middle of the night, and he’d be standing in the doorway, looking over me,” Luciana Mordini Kuziw, who was 11 when she was injured in the fire, told the Chicago Tribune this week. “He was an amazing man, always there for us and for the other families.”
Colleagues recalled that the fire left its mark on Ognibene. He didn’t allow many candles in the churches where he was pastor.
Ognibene grew up in Portage Park, Ill., the second of five children. He was ordained in 1952 and retired in 1996.
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