Recalling fatal fire that killed 15 students outside Buffalo

“I just think things were dealt with differently in the ’50s,” Superintendent Jon MacSwan said. “The tragedy, the pain, the hurt that maybe people wanted to discuss and bring forward, I don’t think it was dealt with in a way that we deal with tragedy now.”

Wednesday, the district will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the fire that killed 15.

More than 300 have signed up to attend the remembrance, including Barbara Blackburn, of Williamsville, who only 10 minutes before the blaze broke out had been in the music room where it did most of its damage.

“It’s an incredible story of loss and tragedy and strength and resilience,” MacSwan said of the fire and its aftermath.

Blackburn passed her friends going into the ill-fated classroom as they entered and she and her classmates exited.

The 15 sixth graders who died were among about 38 students in the music class when fire swept through the wooden annex building on the Mapleview Drive campus in Cheektowaga.

Ten were found huddled by the windows, where they tried to get out. Another five died in the hospital. At least 19 were injured.

Hundreds more in the school had invisible scars.

“We didn’t really talk about it that much,” Blackburn told The Buffalo News last week. “I don’t know why.”