It was around 5:45 that flames burst through the old chapel window and the roof above. The window and wooden scaffolding in the old attic made good kindling wood and the flames leaped high into the darkening sky.

Soon the old bell tower caved and fell through to the basement then the old red plaque of the Sacred Heart fell into the debris as the flames spread with alarming rapidity along the roof. The fire was definantely out of control. Every window of that old building was glowing with brilliant flame as our old school went out in a blaze of destruction. We could see the flames licking greedily everything in the old parlors in the front hall, the middle stairway and the chapel.

Every few minutes (or so it seemed) fire sirens shrieked along the street in front of the old building as new fire departments came on the scene. Fireman from all the towns in Holt County arrived in record time. Gallons of water, pouring continuously for eight or nine hours on the burning building made no impression and could not get it under control.

Several of the fire trucks concentrated on keeping the flames away from the new 1910 building. But to no avail. The flames licked sneakingly across the connecting roof triumphantly jumped across any little barrier there, and got themselves on the roof of the grade school where they spread quickly into the school where they spread quickly into the building already heated by the smoke.

The attic and two store rooms in the east dorm held in storage all of sister Maxine's oil paints and some paintings (many priceless treasures of bygone days). Crepe paper and and prom decorations, accumulated over the years and years were in storage in the west dorm. When those sections were hit by the flames, I tell you all hell broke loose and flames filled the night sky.

The crackling of timber was not exactly deafing but it certainly was maddening when we realized exactly what was going up in smoke.