Ted Trulove

Ted Trulove was born in Oregon. To be honest, his provenance is a bit of a mystery, though he always called Lebanon, Oregon home. In his younger years, he dabbled in farming. He credited a neighbor with staking him for his first tractor. Details were never Ted’s forte when recounting the past, so unfortunately, I can’t recall the neighbor’s name—but I can tell you that the neighbor and his wife were the only people Ted ever counted as family.

Ted married Fern, the love of his life, later in his years. Fern had six grown children, though the two never had children together. They did, however, have Peewee, a miniature poodle they both adored.

Somehow, in the late 1990s, Ted managed to land in Bonners Ferry by way of Noxon and Troy, Montana, along with his logging truck. It was during that era that Ted met a couple of bookkeepers—Teresa Taggart and myself. Farming had long since given way to his love of truck driving. He bounced around Montana and Bonners Ferry hauling logs before following a logger to Wyoming, where he found the trucking just as difficult as the weather. Eventually, Ted and Fern chose to move back to Bonners Ferry to retire. They rented from a few very kind people and came to love the area.

When Fern passed in 2015, Ted fell into deep despair. He wasn’t eating, and since I had moved away and Teresa had gone on to self-employment, we no longer had the day-to-day contact with him that we once did. It was my dad who stopped by with Christmas Eve dinner when he realized Ted needed more care than he could provide for himself. With the help of Pam at the Restorium, Ted moved in and thrived. Later, after a fall required him to move into the nursing wing, the transition—though difficult—was necessary. The care there was exceptional, and the staff did their best to give Ted a home and keep him involved in his new community.

Over the last five-plus years, Ted drifted from his reality and spent more time in his mind, where he was driving truck and down the west coast of Oregon. One of his last stories to me involved driving with a partner who was “the tallest woman you ever saw.” It was a story I hadn’t heard before, but I like to think he moved me into his memory not as a bookkeeper, but as his driving partner, hauling grain down the Oregon coast. (I am fairly tall—so perhaps that’s where I lived in his memory. But who know?)

Why write an obituary for a man almost no one remembers? Maybe because Teresa and I remember. Maybe for his caregivers, who became his family in the end. And maybe so someone reading this will stop by the nursing wing to share a cup of coffee with a lonely old man who has stories to tell. Lastly, it is to remind everyone in Boundary County of the remarkable elder care you have in your town. The Boundary County Restorium and the Extended care Wing of Boundary County Community Hospital are true gems.

Thank you to all of Ted’s caregivers. You are appreciated, and in his ornery and obstinate way, I know he loved you all.