Allan Truax, Jim Sand, The Forest, And The Trees

An Email From Jim Sand About Allan Truax

I recently received an unsolicited email from Jim Sand (who was previously unknown to me) about Allan Truax.¹ The pertinent portion of that message follows:

Why An Email² From Jim Sand To Heck of a Guy About Allan Truax Is Important

I’ve featured the email from Mr. Sand in this post for two reasons:

1. The content confirms and clarifies an important detail about Allan Truax. In Evelyn and Allan Truax Journey Through Life Together, I wrote “Allan Truax’s interest in horticulture, for example, resulted in his planting trees and shrubs around the Truax home in Crosby, North Dakota, at a time when those “were about the only trees in town.”³ The email, describing the Truax lawn from an 8 year old boy’s perspective, is significantly more effective.

2. This email is an example of one of the genuine advantages blogs confer on humanity: mutually beneficial interactions. Obviously, interactions are hardly blog-dependent, but the accessibility of blogs and effective search engines have dramatically increased the number and quality of such connections compared to pre-internet technologies.

Even if I had, for example, written the definitive Allan Truax biography and even if Mr. Sand had read it, what are the chances he would have written me about his childhood memory? And, even if he had written, how could I have circulated that information short of publishing another edition of the biography?

Further, this is no fluke. Some readers may recall the The Great Ozark Folk Festival Flood of 1973 adventure. I have heard from at least two readers who were at that same bluegrass festival deep in the Ozarks that same weekend in 1973, one of whom has promised to write up her own story from that weekend – a story which equals if not surpasses the weirdness of the sojourn I described.

That’s why – ya gotta love the blogs.

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Identification: Allan Truax, Allen Truax, and A.L. Truax
“Allan Truax” and “Allen Truax” appear with approximately equal frequency in the written material I’ve reviewed, with “A.L. Truax” occurring somewhat less often. The name Mr. Truax inscribed in his books was “Allan” so I use it preferentially

Other Heck Of A Guy Posts About Allan Truax

• The first Allan Truax Post was Allan Truax, A.E. Housman, The Ex, and Me
• The most recent Allan Truax Post before this entry was Crosby, North Dakota In The Time Of Allan Truax: Railroad Depot and Hospital
• All Allan Truax posts can be found by clicking on the Allan Truax category

1. An explanation of who Allan Truax is and why he is a feature of the Heck Of A Guy Blog can be found at Who’s Allan Truax? [↩]
2. Mr Sand also sent a second complementary email:
   I only lived across from Mr. Truax for about 2 years. We then moved to “south hill” as the south side of town was called. Coincidentally, after we moved, I lived two houses up from Mrs. Truax. Mrs. Truax was my music teacher throughout elementary school. I assumed she was Mr and Mrs. A.L Truax’s daughter-in-law. Unfortunately, I have no additional information about Mr. Truax. (I do recall seeing a sign that read A.L.Truax. I can not remember if it was on the gate to the fence around his house, or if it was by the door to his house.)

   [↩]

3. Mr & Mrs A.L. Truax, Richard Truax, A History Of Divide County, 1964. p 224 [↩]