Our Lady of the Angels

In 1958, I was in sixth grade at a Catholic school in south suburban Chicago. On December 1, a horrendous fire broke out at a similar school 50 miles away, in Chicago, about six miles west of the city center. Though there were no convictions, a fifth grade boy confessed to setting the fire, and then retracted his confession; but he knew things about the fire that had not been announced. 92 children and three Catholic Sisters died in one of the country’s worst school fires.

I will never forget it.

Now… the principal author of a book about the fire, To Sleep With the Angels: The Story of a Fire, was jailed yesterday, for arson. David Cowan, 41, was charged with setting a fire at another school, St. Benedict’s, in a storage building. He worked there as a janitor until he was recently fired.

In 2001, he lost his job in suburban Bellwood, Illinois. As a firefighter.

He also wrote Great Chicago Fires: Historic Blazes That Shaped a City, published in 2001. His Amazon.com biography reads, "David Cowan was born in Chicago in 1963. He co-authored (with John Kuenster) (published 1998) the critically acclaimed book about the Our Lady of the Angels school fire, To Sleep With the Angels: The Story of a Fire (Ivan R. Dee, Inc.). A U.S. Air Force veteran and former award-winning newspaper reporter, he holds degrees in journalism and political science from Southern Illinois University. (A former) firefighter and independent journalist, Mr. Cowan has written for major newspapers and magazines and appeared in numerous television documentaries about historic fires. He lives in Chicago with his wife, writer and historian Ursula Bielski, and their daughter, Eva. "