_____________"The Fire"__________
I often get asked about "the fire." It’s an event so significant in the history of St. Fidelis that, when it’s talked about, it’s just called THE Fire. So when we talked about setting up the History of Memories pages and went through some of the archives, it was clear what should be the first post.
Besides, the anniversary is in March. How's this for info: this is the 84th anniversary of the event, and the 2 student heroes who saved the day (and lots of lives!) would be 100 years old this year!
Some quick "fire facts":
Date: March 16, 1938
Cause: Unknown
Estimated Damage (in 1938 dollars): $300,000.00
Fire Companies: 4 volunteers fire deptments battled the blaze
Students evacuated: 66
Although the walls around the statue of St. Fidelis were burnt the statue itself was unharmed.
_____________________
St. Fidelis ‘Old College' Destroyed
Butler Volunteer, Firemen
Save Church, Hall
Butler, Pa ., March 16 (1938)
A priest led 65 of his students to safety early today as fire raged through the main .hall of St. Fidelis Seminary, at Herman, a village five miles from here.
The mysterious blaze caused, $150 000 damage to the four story “ old college” and a study hall which Capuchin Franciscan fathers had built with bricks made by their own hands.
Father Victor Green , a small, vigorous man, directed the students for the priesthood , many of them Pittsburghers, from the senior dormitory on the third floor of the hall.
ROOF COLLAPSES
A short time later the roof of the hall and its floors fell into the cellar, leaving only the gaunt brick walls standing. Nuns took the Blessed Sacrament from St. Mary’s Church nearby.
Father Bernard [sic; “Bertrand”] Brookman, 39, of Cumberland. Md., director of the seminary, almost was trapped in the choking smoke when he was awakened by shouts of the boys Father Victor had led outside. Father Bernard said :
"I was the last one in the building. I ran into the hall and was nearly overcome, but I managed to get down the stairs— I seem to have [slid] down them— and then I staggered out the front entrance. I had a bad scare.”
WATER SHORTAGE
Fifteen volunteer firemen from nearby Lyndora and three companies from Butler were hampered by lack of water. They directed thin streams at St. Anthony’s Chapel, St. Mary Monastery and a juior dormitory adjoining the hall, to keep the fire from spreading.
A 7,000-volume library, the dirmitories [sic], class room, an infirmary and the seminary barber shop were housed in the “old college.” The fire also destroyed an older two- story building which housed a study hall and club rooms.
Walter Heasley, 23, a janitor asleep in St. Mary ’s Monastery, was overcome by smoke and suffered slight burns, when he awoke land became confused in the halls. He was treated by Order of Divine Providence nuns who live in a convent on the grounds and then taken to Butler Memorial Hospital.
DISCOVERED BY BOYS
Edward Gallagher, 16, of 206 Pinecastle Avenue, Overbrook, and John Martin, 16, of Idlewood Street, Homewood, were the first to discover the fire.
Father Bernard [sic - "Bertrand"] said it apparently had started in a janitor’s workshop near the study hall.
Gallagher said:
“Martin woke me and said he smelled smoke. We sent Richard Aman, another student, to wake Father Victor on the third floor, and he told us to get the fellows up.
“ We rang the morning bell and some of the seniors went down the fire escape. Father 
Victor stood with his flashlight at the entrance to the junior dormitory until they all got out.”
Sixty-one other students were safe in the fireproof junior dormitory . There are 19 priests, six lay brothers and a number of nuns conected with the seminary, which centers around century-old St. Mary's Church on a hilltop studded with pine trees.
Almost all the seniors lost their clothing and watched the fire with blankets wrapped about them . Father Bernard [sic] said the seniors, would be sent home temporarily until some accommodations can tie arranged for them. Asked if the seminary would rebuild its hall, he said:
“The Capuchins are a very poor order. We shall have to wait and see what can be done.”
Divine Providence nuns carried vigil lights and a crucifix from the church when the fire started.
Mrs. Harry Ancher, keeper of the priests’ vestments, was asleep in the hall when the shouts of the boys aroused her and she fled to safety.
Father Timothy Gottschalk, Father Victor and Father Marcellus Fuller, all prefects of discipline, and Brother Jerome Ryan, the lay brother in charge of the infirmary, were asleep in their “old college" rooms when the alarm came.
STATUE UNSCATHED
Unharmed by the blaze was a life-size statue of the school ’s patron saint, St. Fidelis, set in a niche above the main doorway. The walls around it were fire- scarred, but it was untouched.
The blaze lit the sky for miles around, and Herman’s several hundred residents stood for hours watching the spectacle. The highway in front of the seminary was jammed .
Many Pittsburghers are benefactors of the seminary and some of the Capuchin Franciscan priests here got their classical training there.
Read the testimony of
the two brave students
and the friars' accounts . . . .