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Monday, May 21, 2012

Friend: Stringer will be remembered for ‘valor’

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Fire Lt. Edward Stringer

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Updated: December 23, 2010 7:05AM



On his days off, Chicago Firefighter Edward Stringer would head for the Lakepoint Club campground in Wilmington.

He’d been making the trip regularly since 1996.

“He was here usually when he was off from work,” said campground manager Monica Murdaugh. “He loved it down here.”

“There was no pressure. It was just a laid-back situation.”

Stringer, who was killed Wednesday when the roof of an abandoned building collapsed during a fire, enjoyed riding his motorcycle in the area and liked to grill and “hang out with the guys,” she said.

He’d often help other campers at the site. Members there gave him the nickname “Diego.”

“He was a good guy,” Murdaugh said after a day of fielding calls from friends about his death. “I’m in shock. Everybody’s in shock.”

Stringer had two adult children, including a daughter who would often visit her father at the campground.

Fellow firefighters Wednesday remembered Stringer, 47, as spot-on in following instructions.

“February 2, 1998, was when he came in,” said firefighter Richard Rosado, a media affairs officer who was an instructor when Stringer trained.

“I’d tell him to do something and he always did it,” he said. “He was very respectful.”

But it wasn’t always serious business with Stringer, Rosado said. The man enjoyed a joke.

“He was very funny, very humorous,” Rosado said, remembering Stringer’s inability to retaliate against instructors’ pranks and good-natured ribbing — during training.

Stringer did make up for it later though, he said. “He got me back when they graduated.”

A Fire Department district commander, who didn’t want to be identified, said outside the county morgue that Stringer will be remembered for his “bravery’’ and “valor.’’

He said he knows Stringer’s mother, a retired city worker. “We lost a friend, we lost a brother,’’ he said.

Contributing: Kara Spak

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