Cocoanut Grove Nightclub Fire

Witness to History

Week 4 - 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024

Ethel (Mills) McCann & Francis “Frank” Moore McCann, my in-laws, married on 20 March 1943 in Greenville, Mississippi.  Just four months earlier Frank and Ethel were participants in and witnesses to history.  

Private Frank McCann was home on leave from the Army for Thanksgiving in November 1942.  The family gathered in Newton, Massachusetts on Sunday 22 November to celebrate Frank's visit.  Frank was photographed with his brother, Rollie, and his fianceé, Ethel Mills.

Frank and Rollie McCann

Ethel Mills and Frank McCann

Catherine "Kay" (Smith) McCann, Florence McCann (Frank and Rollie's sister), Ethel Mills (my future mother-in-law). May 1942.

The next Saturday, on the evening of 28 November 1942, Frank and Ethel, went to the Cocoanut Grove Nightclub in Boston after attending the Boston College - Holy Cross football game. They were a party of 11, celebrating Frank's home leave, even though Holy Cross upset their team, favored Boston College, 55 to 12.  Among the group was Frank's brother, John Roland “Rollie” McCann, and sister-in-law, Catherine “Kay” (Smith) McCann. 

The group was in the New Lounge section of the Cocoanut Grove when cries of fire started shortly after 10 pm, throwing the celebrants into a panic.  Frank led his party through a door into a narrow hall.   At the end of the hall was a small window.   Frank found that the window was only a short distance from the ground.  Frank assisted his fiancée out the window to the ground, but only after she had been brushed aside by two or three men.  

At this time Frank’s brother and sister-in-law were right behind him.  After seeing his fiancée to safety, Frank looked back for his brother and sister-in-law.  They were engulfed in the pushing and hysterical crowd.  Frank did not see his brother or sister-in-law again. (from an account in the Fitchburg (Mass) Sentinel, Monday 30 November 1942).  

Frank’s brother, Rollie and his wife Kay both perished in the inferno.  Ethel, Frank and one other person in their party of 11 were the only survivors in their group. A total of 492 people died that night.

Aftermath of the fire at Cocoanut Grove on November 28, 1942
(Boston Globe File Photo)

John R. McCann, Uncle Rollie, was the Treasurer of Plastic Turning, a plastics manufacturer in Leominster, Massachusetts.  Posted in the Leominster Daily Enterprise, 1 December 1942. p. 2.

Boston Globe, 3 December 1942, p. 11.

Cocoanut Grove Fire Report published Fall 1943

City of Boston Committee on Public Safety, Cocoanut Grove Casualties from Fire, November 28, 1942.  Master List as of December 10, 1942, and adjusted to October 16, 1943.  (This list cancels and supersedes all other.)  Dead-490, Injured-166.  Entries for John R. McCann and Katherine M. McCann, Dead, Southern Mortuary.  Contained within the above pictured Report..

My husband, Roland "Rollie" McCann, was named for his Uncle Rollie, lost at the Cocoanut Grove that night. My son, Jay Roland McCann, also carries on Uncle Rollie’s name. I met my future in-laws for the first time in 1960, 18 years after the fire. I heard from family members, that hearing emergency vehicle sirens was a very difficult thing for my mother-in-law, Ethel... no wonder...

Rescuers

Military personnel joined Boston fire and rescue teams
in rescue and recovery (Boston Public Library)

Years later I learned that my father's brother-in-law, my Uncle Frank Cusack, in the Army at the time of the Cocoanut Grove fire, was one of the rescuers, and a participant in and a witness to history.  Frank gave me the clipping below and the account that he wrote later in life about his participation in the event.

 

The Cocoanut Grove Nightclub Fire is responsible for improved fire safety codes and advances in the treatment of burn victims.

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