DOB/DOD: October 26, 1962 (Hartford, CT) – October 23, 1983; 20 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Unmarried
LOCAL ADDRESS: Pinney Street, Ellington
ENLISTMENT: January 25, 1982
MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY: 0351, Infantry Assaultman
UNIT: 24th Marine Amphibious Unit
FAMILY: Born to Richard L. [Air Force veteran; 1951-1953] (1932-2022) and Barbara Smith Tingley. Three sisters, Linda A. Tingley Evans, Nancy L. Tingley Hurlburt, and Donna J. Tingley Plickys. One brother, Russell.
Graduated from Ellington High School, Class of 1980. Photos are from the 1979 yearbook.
From The Hartford Courant on October 27, 1983
By Jan Tarr | Courant Staff Writer
ELLINGTON — Wednesday was Stephen Tingley’s 21st birthday, but his family wasn’t celebrating. The U.S. Marines informed Richard and Barbara Tingley on Wednesday morning that their son is missing in Beirut. The family had anxiously awaited word about Tingley since the bombing of the Marine command post on Sunday, his mother said. That word came on Wednesday morning when Barbara Tingley was called out of her job as a paraprofessional at Ellington High School and told to go home to see her husband, who is head of athletics and physical education in the Vernon schools., “I immediately knew what it was for,” she said, crying a little during a telephone interview. Stephen Tingley is part of a reconnaissance group that has been in the war-torn country since May. He had been looking forward to coming home on November 17, Barbara Tingley said. Tingley said waiting for news from Beirut has been difficult. In wartime, families have been able to commiserate with one another because so many people were involved, she said. But now, “There are so few of us (Americans) in there. … We’ve been in it all alone, and it’s been very hard.” The Tingleys received a letter from Stephen Tingley on Wednesday, but his mother said she could not remember what it said. In previous letters, he had written that, “It was getting crazy over there,” Barbara Tingley said. Stephen Tingley has been in the Marines since January 1982 and has talked about reenlisting so he could learn to be a diesel mechanic, his mother said. Since his graduation in 1980 from Ellington High School, where he played soccer and baseball, he has been unsure about his plans for the future, Barbara Tingley said. His family has encouraged him to re-enlist. Tingley is one of four Connecticut Marines who are listed as missing in Beirut, said Captain Marcus E. Soul of the 1st Marine Corps District in Garden City, New York, on Wednesday. -article truncated-
From The Hartford Courant on November 10, 1998
3 FRIENDS HONOR A VETERAN
Ellington natives Jim Prichard, Richard Trzcinski, and Danny Fitzgerald recently restored the area surrounding a monument dedicated to their friend and former classmate, U.S. Marine Private First Class Stephen Tingley.
Tingley was among those who died on October 23, 1983, in a car bombing at the U.S. embassy in Beirut.
Tingley’s sisters, Donna Plickys and Nancy Hurlburt, both of Ellington, were among the nearly 30 people who recently gathered to rededicate the site.
“It’s 110 percent better,” Plickys said. “We are very, very grateful to them.”
Plickys said the three men took it upon themselves to restore the monument, which was previously surrounded by dead trees and weeds working their way through the stonework.
The monument is near the center field fence at Ellington High School’s baseball field. Plickys said that the site was originally chosen because her brother had been very active in sports, including soccer and baseball.
Other Tingley family members include their brother, Russell Tingley of Florida, a sister, Linda Parker of Arizona, and parents Richard and Barbara Tingley, also of Florida.
The Star True Value Hardware Store in Ellington donated all the landscaping items needed to restore the site.
Memorialized at the Ellington High School baseball field, 37 Maple Street, Ellington, Connecticut
Memorialized on the Ellington Veterans Memorial, 84 Main Street, Ellington, Connecticut. Photo by Jeff DeWitt.
Burial was private
END