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ESL Businesses ]   1956 in Loisel Village  by John Frey of
Chicago   On a fine spring day in 1956, from the yard of our
house in Loisel Village, we watched the parish church, St.
Philip, bum to the ground. The church's steeple, which rose
serenely above the roofs in the neighborhood, was enveloped by
flames and huge billows of black smoke. My mother, at the
suggestion of our neighbor, Mary Ellen Osland, got out an 8 mm
movie camera and began filming. Although we were three blocks
away, strange black ashes, the size of sycamore leaves, came
floating down from the sky.  We children jumped and scrambled to
catch them. All at once the entire steeple was hidden by the
smoke, but we could tell where it was from the bright fl