Trudine 'Trudy' Stringer, a woman who treated everyone like family, dies of COVID-19 at 74

Trudine "Trudy" Stringer was "the epitome of a neighborhood mom" who welcomed everyone into her north Minneapolis home and would make sure they didn't leave without getting fed.

"My mom treated everybody like they were family," her son Randy Stringer Sr. said.

"She was always like, 'Are you hungry, do you want something to eat? I can go make you something,' She always tried to take care of everybody," he said. "Everybody who walked into the house, that we introduced, they were her kids. If she saw you, she helped you."

Born and raised in Minneapolis, Stringer maintained a positive outlook and sense of humor throughout her life, he said.

She loved to laugh, and later in her life, visits from family to her room at the assisted-living center where she lived often left her children dissolved in laughter as well, he said.

"She'd get going, and you'd be in there a half-hour, just laughing," he said.

Stringer was hospitalized with pneumonia this spring and initially tested negative for COVID-19, her son said.

He recalled that when he was a child, she would come home from shifts at Fisher Nut Company in St. Paul with samples of new flavors or innovations for the family to try.

She worked at the nut factory for many years in several departments, from cleaning vats to packaging products.

After Fisher was acquired by another company, Stringer worked at a Subway sandwich shop, where everyone knew her and she knew their orders.

"She was a real people person," he said.

Stringer also staffed the Bottineau Recreation Center in northeast Minneapolis, where children called her "Grandma Trudy."

Stringer was preceded in death by her mom, Pauline King Landrum, her sister Rose Marie Rowe and her life partner Charlie Hill.

In addition to Randy, who lives in Mounds View, survivors include daughters Marilynn King of Minneapolis; Tina Stringer of St. Paul and Stephaniee Hadley of Minneapolis, and sons Charles Stringer Jr. of New Hope and Kevin Stringer of Minneapolis as well as many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.