The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1915-10-29
Score of Pupils Lost Lives
In Absence of Fire
Escapes.
DEEDS OF HEROISM
WERE NOT LACKING
Nineteen Crushed or Burned
To Death, and Large
Number Were Injured
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS.

Peaoody, Mass, Oct. 28.-Twenty
pupils of st. Johns Parochial school
lost their lives in a fire that started
in the basement few minutes after
the morning session had opened to-
day, swept through the three stories
of the brick and wooden school build
ing in less than five minutes.
Nineteen of the boys and girls, all
in their teens, were crushed or burned
to death. A score of others were in
iured. Of the latter, one, Mildred
Mead, aged 16, died after having been
removed to hospital.
The bodies of the dead were fright
fully burned and only two, Elizabeth
Nolan, aged II years, and Mary Sui
Ivan, 16, had been identified late to-
day. Other bodies were believed to
be in the ruins, and it was thought
twenty-five had been killed or fatally
injured.
There were 700 children in the
building when the fire started. Its
origin is in doubt. Some thought it
was caused by a hot air explosion.
Mother Superior Aldgeon, who was
in charge of the pupils, heard an ex-
plosion, and detecting smoke, sound
ed the alarm. There were no fire
escapes on the building, but wide
stairways at either end OF the in
terror led down to the front exit
Under fire drill discipline, the little
ones were marched through constant
| ly thickening clouds of smoke to the
ground floor when the leaders lost
their heads.
Instead of passing out the rear
exit, according to rule, they made a
dash for the front, and became
jammed in the vestibule. Soon the
crowded vestibule was wrapped in
flames.
Many reached the open and others
were dropped from second and third
story windows or dragged out Of the
windows on the ground floor.
FIRE DRILL SAVED MANY.
The students who ranged in years
from seven to thirteen were in charge
of sixteen sisters. When the fire
broke out, the sisters marshalled their
charges as for fire drill, and started
them from the building. The pro-
cessions were orderly until those from
the third floor joined others pouring
from the class rooms on the second
floor.
Suddenly there was a cry of fire
; from one of the throng. 1t was taken
up by a hundred others and panic en-
sued. The sisters made frantic eff
forts to stop the pushing, struggling
mass, but to no purpose. The smaller
} children fell under the feet of those
behind them and soon the vestibule
was so damned with living and dead
that the firemen could not force an
entrance. The sixteen sisters escaped
The flames, it Is supposed, started
7 in the basement and according ia
' some, were caused by the explosion
of a steam boiler from which the
building was heated. There is doubt
= however, as to the exact origin OF
the fire.
A large percentage of the pupils
: were children Of foreign parentage
In the number were many of Irish
and italian descent. The fremer
: fought the fire from ladders raised
. to the windows while the polict
y cleared the vestibule. The bodies Of
1 the dead generally were burned be
s yond recognition.
Mary Leeds and Marion Hayei
o were found in the crush badly burne'
but alive and were removed to a hos
pital.
st. Johns Parochial school stand
on Chestnut street near St. john
Catholic church and the home of Rev
Nicholas Murphy, the pastor. Oppo
s site is st. Johns convent.
e MOTHERS WERE DISTRACTED.
s The first alarm brought hundre
distracted mothers to the school var
L where soon they were joined by othe
a relatives of the pupils, until tn
building was surrounded by a grea
L crowd of hysterical men and wome
who rushed the police lines in a vii
p effort to reach their children. Tn
n police were powerless to stop tn
rush but what they failed to do wa
= accomplished presently by the fame
Il