Eddie Lee Stovall Stringer

Mother Eddie Lee Stovall Stringer was a woman of God born into a strong and proud Henry County Alabama family, tracing their roots in the area to the early 1800s. By no means a family of financial wealth, however the Stovall clan had a rich lineage far more valuable than money. Mother Stringer was born November 9, 1918, the sixth of eleven children of Eddie Stovall and Annie Dawson in Haleburg, Alabama. One son, Herschel, died as a young infant and another son, Tucker, died in 1982. A family of nonagenarians and centenarians, her parents both died at the age of 94 and siblings proceeding her in death included Trudie, age 103, Jeannie, age 110, Lucille, age 101, Orlander, age 99, and Cornelia, age 95. Three siblings remain, Clara, age 101, Francis, age 99 and Archester, age 96.

The Stovall name loomed large in the small farming village of Haleburg, Alabama because the Stovalls were among the rarity of Black families that owned their farmland as opposed to the mass populous that sharecropped by renting out farmland from wealthy whites. Family lore has it that Tucker Stovall and Tucker Stovall Jr., the grandfather and father of Mother Stringer's father, at one time owned more than a thousand acres in Henry County. Today, the Stovall family and heirs still own over 400 acres of Henry County inclusive of a homestead that lies adjacent to the Mount Zion Baptist Church that the family founded in 1871. The church is still functioning today and is one of the oldest wooden frame churches founded by Blacks in the entire south, having been placed on the Alabama Historic Register in 1985. The adjacent cemetery is the gravesite of many formerly enslaved Stovall family members.

Mother Stringer grew up working on the family farm and cherished the days she could attend school. She was educated at a famed Rosenwald School, a boarding school for Blacks in Newville, Alabama. From a very young age she was enamored with things of the Lord and felt a strong call to ministry and the pulpit. Even though her family all but owned her childhood church, her father would not allow any woman, even his beloved namesake, to dare speak a word in church, much less preach.

Her father's sister, Ophelia, a strong proponent of women's rights, would secretly bring Mother Stringer to her church, Oak Grove AME Church whom her husband's family the Haydens and Hendersons (both cousins of Eddie Lee through her maternal line) had founded. At Oak Grove, Mother Stringer was allowed to serve as an exhorter and scripture reader. The Methodist church teachings about holiness would prove foundational for Mother Stringer in both life and ministry.

In 1938 Mother Stringer married Jesse Stringer, a barber , and eventually moved from rural Haleburg to more urban Dothan, Alabama. Before moving to Dothan Mother Stringer experienced her first opportunity to vote. Her father-in-law Lessly Stringer and cousin Perry Hayden were actively encouraging people to go to Abbeville to register to vote. Although greatly discouraged by her father and husband, Mother Stringer went anyway and became one of the first people, and possibly first woman of color, from Haleburg to vote.

In Dothan, Mother Stringer became a member of Adam Street Baptist Church where she was licensed as a missionary and allowed to teach Sunday School, engage with the BYP (Baptist Young People), and serve as the annual Woman's Day lay speaker. In Dothan, Mother Stringer became both a nurse's aide and licensed cosmetologist. She also became one of the first persons to integrate the cafeteria at the Alabama Southeast Hospital where she worked. Recalling that day, "it's funny cause Black folks did all the cooking but they wouldn't dare have Blacks and whites eat together. After they struck down the rule that we could all eat together, a man from the county came and tore down the big curtain that separated us from whites in the dining hall, he told us "you can go over and eat in the white section, no one will bother you, it's the law now." Well no one dared move and I said, "why not," so me, I was the only woman and three men went over and ate our lunch with the white folks."

Mother Stringer, Jesse, and their children moved to Freeport, New York in 1962. There, she worked as a nurse's aide for many years. Again, unknowingly Mother Stringer blazed trails by moving her family to Freeport, Long Island. There in Freeport, the Stringers were the first Black family in an all-Jewish neighborhood. Joining many across the nation in the great migration of Blacks to the North, she recounted, "now it was much better in New York than in Alabama but no one was inviting us over for dinner, that's for sure."

In New York, Mother Stringer's call to ministry would flourish. She initially joined Second Baptist Church but like many transplants from the South eventually found a home in the sanctified church. "Mother [Margaret] White was having intercessory prayer and Second Baptist didn't do things like that so I knew prayer was the only thing that had gotten us through and prayer was all I had many a night." Out of that intercessory prayer group, she joined the Little Zion Church of God in Christ, today known as Zion Cathedral, a mega church in Freeport, New York. Mother Stringer found herself at home in the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and was quickly licensed as an evangelist and it was there she was promoted to "mother" status. She organized and led many revivals and evangelistic meetings.

As a COGIC mother, Mother Stringer took up a mantle that had spiritual significance but carried over into being agents of change in secular affairs as well. Despite the nay sayings of her husband, Mother Stringer preached and preached and preached, all the more. Columbia, SC had become a second home for her during the 1970s with the matriculation and graduation of three of her children from Benedict College (Carolyn, Martin and Linda). In Columbia, she found much favor, often leading revivals for Elder James McKinney and the Community Memorial COGIC. Mother Stringer eventually made her way to Tulsa, Oklahoma as a result of the Charismatic Movement. She graduated at the top of her class from Victory Bible Institute in her early 70s. Continually defying the odds many women face in ministry, Mother Stringer became a fully ordained pastor and minister of the gospel under the late renowned Pentecostal Bishop Carlton Pearson in 1988 at Higher Dimensions Evangelistic Center. In Columbia, she often preached and was a speaker for several churches, including Stedfast Christian Center and First Northeast Baptist Church, crossing denominational boundaries and unyielding to gender hierarchies about leadership. Mother Stringer served for nearly thirty years as assistant pastor at Joy Praise and Worship Center alongside her daughter, Attorney J. Carolyn Stringer. Reverend Eddie Lee Stringer's legacy looms large as countless churches and ministries have been birthed from her leadership and persons from around the world continuously sought her out daily for prayer, intercession, and counsel.

Mother Stringer has joined the heavenly choir along with those proceeding her in death including: her loving daughter and son-in-law Ruth Gwendolyn and Sam Porter, longtime Freeport NY pillars and Blythewood SC residents; husband Jesse Stringer of Freeport NY; siblings Trudie Powell of Aliquippa, PA, Jeannie Glen of Garner, NC, Lucille Williams, of Sanford, FL, Orlander Stovall and Cornelia Davis, both of Haleburg, AL; and granddaughter Stacye Mathis of Palm Bay, FL.

Mother Eddie Lee Stovall Stringer leaves to cherish her precious memory: six children, Willa J. Stringer, of Palm Bay, FL, J. Carolyn Stringer, of Columbia, SC, MacArthur Stringer, of Hempstead, NY, Martin L. (Eunice Leilani) Stringer, Linda S. (Carlos) Smith, and Debra D. (Dennis) Goodman, all of Columbia, SC; siblings, Clara B Stephens, of Abbeville, AL, Francis McGowin, of Haleburg, AL, and Archester Stovall, of Silver Spring, MD ; sisters-in-law Bernice Hill, of Salem, OR and Vondell Stringer, of Anniston, AL; 23 grandchildren; a host of great-grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, even great-great-great grandchildren; and many loving nieces, nephews, cousins, other loving relatives and caring friends, all of whom will miss her dearly.

Psalm 37:25 (KJV) - Mother's Favorite Scripture

"I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread."

Viewing Location: Leevy's Funeral Home, 1831 Taylor Street, Columbia, South Carolina

Viewing Date & Time: Thursday, November 14, 2024 / 2:00 P.M. - 6:00 P.M.

Funeral Location: Brookland Baptist Church - Northeast, 1203 Summit Parkway, Columbia, South Carolina

Funeral Date & Time: Friday, November 15, 2024 / 11:00 A.M.

Interment Location: Greenlawn Memorial Gardens, 7100 Garners Ferry Road, Columbia, South Carolina