224 Fire Destroys School in my Home Town

"A fire that gutted David L. Rahn Elementary School has left staff and students without a building but with intentions to resume classes next week.

Clouds of brown and black smoke billowed from the school for most of Thursday, engulfing the town of about 3,000 people. More than a dozen fire departments, some from as far away as Rockton, Lena and Dixon, worked in freezing conditions to battle the blaze, which was still burning 12 hours after the first alarm." Story in Rockford Starand Photos and story WTVO

E-mail flew around the country as alumni heard almost as soon as town residents what happened. One wrote: "The call went out to almost 50 communities for help, and they showed up. Tanker after tanker bringing in water. If you can believe this, there is hardly any water at that end of town. A huge school and church at that end and no water. They were filling up at Kable Printing and then bringing the water to the school where it was dumped into a swimming pool-like container. The smoke and flames were unbelievable. They just did a million plus renovation and up to code repairs last year. All 300 kids got out, no coats, book bags, some lost shoes in the snow. The Red Cross and Salvation Army are at the church and donations are being accepted. One family had six children in the school, and they lost everything."

Another said: "So thankful no lives were lost. But simply can not imagine how no one smelled smoke or was alerted that something was terribly wrong. I am so sad for so many people but have my own fond memories of teaching at that beautiful school. It still seems like a dream and hard to believe.

I didn't attend school in this facility built in the late 1960s, in fact, I'd never been inside. The teacher/principal for whom it was named was one of my 7th-8th grade teachers.

The building I attended as a freshman in high school burned in 1992 and was destroyed, although it wasn't being used then as a school. On Easter Sunday 1931, the town college had a disastrous fire when my parents were freshmen, and it closed in 1932. In 1912, the college had experienced another terrible fire in "Old Sandstone," but that time had rebuilt.

Since the 1960s, many children have passed through that school, so perhaps O.D. Buck who wrote a poem in 1912 [Memories of Old Sandstone, 1912] about that fire won't mind if I mention a verse or two:

Old home of scores of sturdy sons,
Farewell, thy work is o'er.
We who have dwelt within thy walls,
Thy parting do deplore,

Thy mission thou hast nobly filled,
Thy influence--who can tell?
Oh, that thou of us could say,
"My children have done well."