3-10-14 fire destroys building at st. lawrence seminary

Nobody was injured in a fire that destroyed an historic building at  St. Lawrence Seminary in Mt. Calvary.  Firefighters from dozens of area departments were called to the scene around 5:30am Saturday to a report of a fire at St. Joseph’s Hall.  The building houses the Seminary administrative offices and music room.

Mt. Calvary Fire Chief Mark Petrie says the cause of the fire remains under investigation.  "When I pulled up we had heavy smoke in the building.  The first crew in encountered heavy smoke and fire and we had to back off because of the heat,"  Petrie told WFDL news at the scene.  "Our goal was to save the big building here and we went defensive on the St. Joseph building."   Students at the seminary say they woke up Saturday morning to see flames and smoke pouring out of the building.  Father Bob Wheelock  says he lived in that building as a student when it was a dormitory in the 1950s.  Now he says everything is gone.  "You got a lot of memories with a building like that.  When I was here in the 50s that was a dormitory,  I lived on the third floor,"  Wheelock said.  "The big thing for me is I'm thinking of our music director and he lost everything.  He doesn't have one sheet of paper and all the instruments...they're all gone."