KARIN GRUNDEN and HOWARD GRENINGER
Courtesy Tribune-Star
Some knew Ralph Stott Jr. for his gruff and boisterous ways.
Others knew much more was hidden under the Terre Haute fire captain's tough exterior.
"He had a great big heart," said Chris Harrison of Rosedale, Stott's youngest sister.
Tears welled in her eyes as she remembered her 50-year-old brother. He was killed Monday while fighting a fire, nine blocks from his home on the city's north side.
At Fire Station No. 11, where Stott had served the last few years of his nearly 24-year career, a makeshift memorial began to form under the flag, which flew at half-staff.
"This just hasn't soaked in," said city fire Lt. Clifford "Randy" Phillips, sitting outside the fire house at Maple Avenue and 26th Street. There, passersby honked their horns, dropped off food and stopped to give their condolences.
As a firefighter, Stott may not have won awards but he did "most everything that we require," said Fire Chief John Brighton, who described the fire captain's death as the "ultimate sacrifice."
For the co-workers having trouble coping with Stott's death, counseling was being offered, Brighton said.
For some, just talking about their comrade proved the best kind of therapy.
Phillips sat outside Station No. 11 with two other firefighters, recalling Stott as an outspoken character who'd "tell you like it is." Stott also loved to have fun and made the day go by quickly for those who worked beside him, Phillips said.
When there were no fires to fight or other work to do, Stott could be found sitting in a recliner inside the fire house, sipping tea -- which he drank all day long -- and watching Westerns.
On his hours away from the fire house, the avid New York Yankees fan looked after his parents and worked in the yard, he told his co-workers.
Another of his loves was politics. "He thoroughly enjoyed it," said Elisha "Pee Wee" Hamblen, Stott's brother-in-law and the Fire Department's chief of operations.
A Democratic precinct committeemen since 1984, Stott once encouraged a friend to start his own political career.
Larry Auler, a retired fire captain who also served at Station No. 11, said Stott encouraged him to run against then 12-year incumbent Ray Azar for a seat on the Terre Haute City Council.
"We were at the fire house one night and Ralph pumped me up to run and here I am," said Auler, who served almost two terms as a city councilman and is seeking a second term as Harrison Township Assessor.
Even more than being a co-worker or inspiration for a political career, Stott "was the best friend I could have ... We were like brothers," said Auler, who has been asked to be a pallbearer at Thursday's funeral.
And a brother was the one thing Stott didn't have. He did have four sisters, with Stott right in the middle.
His two older siblings recalled tormenting, "Brother," as they called Stott, chasing him around the house and kicking at him as he hid under the bed or dining-room table. Usually, Mom would come to the rescue; he was a "momma's boy," after all, his sisters said.
The sisters told stories of how the boy who loved ketchup sandwiches was constantly in trouble at school; how, to the chagrin of his mother, Stott once climbed the rafters as Plaza North was being built; and how he threw a rock through a car window when a neighbor asked him to "crack the window."
"He was real mischievous," said sister Joyce Stott of Terre Haute, who suggested that her brother was probably responsible for a few of their mother's gray hairs.
But there was the other side, too.
"He was a big teddy bear," said his eldest sister, Linda Hamblen of Terre Haute.
Stott, a child who eagerly awaited Christmas, was an adult known to drop off holiday baskets to his elderly neighbors, his sisters said.
He also had a real heart for his family, his wife of four years and his two daughters.
Stott, who himself had been injured in a car accident years back, was devastated when 17-year-old daughter Jessica was killed in a car crash four years ago. After her death, he became a "homebody," his family said.
As his family looks back, no one's quite sure why Stott, a 1969 Garfield High School graduate, chose firefighting after a stint in the Army and working for the railroad.
But it's something he seemed to enjoy and even sang about from his bathroom window, said his sister, Sue Hauser of Linton, who once lived next door to her older brother.
Remembering him singing "they call me a fireman ... I love my truck," still makes her laugh.
In the end, his sisters agree -- "Brother" was a good man, a good father, a good brother and ultimately "a true fireman."
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