Firefighter funeral closes part of North Michigan Avenue

Chicago Fire Lt. Kevin Ward, who died earlier this month from injuries suffered while battling a house fire, was to be laid to rest Wednesday.

Ward was escorted up North Michigan Avenue on Wednesday morning from the Engine 98 firehouse on East Chicago Avenue.

His casket sat atop a fire engine and was led by the Chicago Fire Department Pipes and Drums and the Pipes and Drums of the Chicago Police Department. Two firetruck ladders held a massive American flag above Michigan Avenue and Chestnut Street.

Firefighters and Chicago police officers lined up and saluted as the procession made its way to the steps of the Fourth Presbyterian Church for visitation and funeral services.

Mayor Brandon Johnson was scheduled to attend the service at 11 a.m.

Corrinne Walenda, Ward’s ex-wife, said Ward was always up for an adventure and a challenge. His hobbies included playing underwater hockey, creating thousands of blown glass artworks and scuba diving around the world.

“He absolutely loved life,” Walenda said. “He was an exceptionally strong scuba diver and swimmer. We saw a lot of the world that way, like the Galapagos, Socorro Island. We saw manta rays and whale sharks and humpback whales, all through scuba diving.”

Walenda said Ward’s favorite book, “The Hobbit,” embodied who he was. He lived his life always looking for the next adventure and cared deeply about his friendships.

They were together for 15 years after meeting at the Art Institute in 2001. Though they divorced in 2016, the two remained close friends, so much so that Walenda accompanied him for a recent outpatient procedure and has adopted Skye, his German shepherd.

“We lived about a mile and a half from each other and we watched each other’s dogs all the time. His dog, Skye, and my dog, Ditka, are both German shepherds,” Walenda said. “And Skye is now with us as her forever home. So she’s fully happy to be puppying around the house with her buddy Ditka right now.”

Ward planned on retiring to Colorado where he had been fixing up a cabin. He planned to move there with Skye and set up a workshop to continue creating his blown glass sculptures. The cabin was situated between Denver and the peaks of the Continental Divide.

Ward, 58, died Aug. 28 at Loyola Medical Center. He was injured Aug. 11 while fighting a house fire in the 8300 block of West Balmoral Avenue.

He was born in Oxford, England, in 1964. He was preceded in death by his mother, Valerie Ward, and is survived by his father, John Ward, and his sister, Wren Aislinn. He grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and earned an economics degree from the University of Michigan in 1986.

Before joining the Chicago Fire Department in 1996, he was an options trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a ski resort employee and hotel chef in Colorado and a deckhand on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska.

Ward was Dr. Kimberly Krubeck’s dental patient for 20 years. She stopped by the church Monday morning to watch the procession and pay her respects.

“He was a great person, just the nicest guy. And he cared a lot about his teeth,” Krubeck said.

She would spend time with Ward and Walenda socially. Krubeck remembers sitting at a restaurant once and Ward pointing out all the exits to her in case of a fire.

“It’s just a horrible thing to die in the line of duty. He was just doing his job,” Krubeck said.

Firefighters remembered Ward as being adventure-driven, an avid reader of philosophy and a great guy to work with.

“This is very tragic for us,” Chicago Fire Department Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt told reporters on Aug. 29 after Ward’s body was taken by procession to the Cook County medical examiner’s Near West Side office.

Ward was the third fire department member to die in the line of duty this year. Lt. Jan Tchoryk died of a heart attack while battling a blaze in a Gold Coast high-rise April 5, one day after firefighter Jermaine Pelt died in a South Side fire.