Travis Raye Oak: a hot dog truck and a long fight

Travis Raye Oak was born on February 6, 1982, in Houston, Texas, a son of Richard Dixon Oak and Margery Lee Clarkson, as his death certificate records. He was the older brother of Michael Oak, born in 1984, and David, born in 1988.

By his brother's account, the family was living in New Hampshire when Travis was six. Their mother, pregnant with David and in the middle of a mental breakdown, relocated the boys to Texas without their father's knowledge or consent. At some point the boys went into foster care there; when, and for how long, is still unknown. Travis remembered it. In his handwritten recovery journal in 2020, listing the people from each stage of his childhood, he wrote under the years six to ten: "some kid who kicked me in the face in Texas," "foster home people," "Police," and then his family. His mother's and David's stories tell more.

The hot dog truck, 2014 to 2015

In the fall of 2014, his brother bought a retired fire-department canteen truck on the government surplus site GovDeals, a red van still lettered for the Ridgefield Fire Department's emergency services. The two brothers converted it into a hot dog truck, and Travis ran it on and off for about a year. Photographs from the following spring show him beside it in a yellow shirt and a red shirt, the "HOT DOGS" flag flying.

According to his brother, Travis's drinking, and then drugs, were too much for the business.

Hospitals, 2018 and 2019

In September 2018, Travis wrote to New Hampshire's medical board about a frightening night at Lakes Region General Hospital in Laconia. In his email, he said he had come in suicidal, had been refused a hold as an inpatient, and had been sent home with conflicting prescriptions.

The following February, he spent two weeks at Brattleboro Retreat, a psychiatric hospital in Vermont. The hospital's discharge paperwork records his inpatient stay from February 1 to 14, 2019, and lists his discharge diagnoses: major depressive disorder (recurrent, moderate), borderline personality disorder, schizoaffective disorder, severe alcohol use disorder, PTSD, an anxiety disorder, and a mild cannabis use disorder. His brother describes this as a more modern diagnosis that "seemed similar in nature" to what their mother Margery had lived with; her story tells more.

In emails written a few weeks after that stay, Travis described how he had come to Concord, New Hampshire, around the end of 2018, homeless. He was staying at a sober-living house called the McKenna House, using the city's resource center, going to sobriety meetings, and pursuing a disability claim for a knee injury and his ongoing mental illness.

The fight

Travis struggled with alcohol and then with drugs for many years. In February and March 2020, he kept a journal for a recovery program in a red Composition Book. Its written pages are shown here, with the names of living people and of people outside the family blacked out.

In entries dated February 16 and 17, 2020, Travis worked through a written inventory of his life. He listed the people who mattered to him at each age, going back to early childhood: his mother, his father, his brothers and half-brothers, and others from his early years in Texas and then New Hampshire.

Alongside that inventory, he kept a gratitude list. On February 17, he wrote:

"I am grateful that I will be warm, safe and sober tonight. I am grateful I have so many meetings available to me. I am grateful I was able to take 4 showers today. I am grateful I have a great sponsor that does not tell me to call him everyday, because that is bullshit."

Three days later, on February 20:

"I am grateful that I have a great doctor that is there to help. I am grateful I am starting to open up and talk to people. I am grateful to have clean clothes. I am grateful that I look good and am starting to feel good about myself. I am grateful I have boots and shoes, food, water, shelter."

And on March 2:

"I am grateful I have two good friends with me tonight [names withheld]. I am grateful to not be lonely tonight. I am grateful I have food, water and shelter. I am grateful I was able and willing to pay for someone in a sober home to give them a chance. I am grateful I have been able to find peace in my travels. I am grateful I am willing to love again. I am grateful I have clean clothes and a shower. I am grateful I love to laugh and find myself laughing at myself and how ridiculous I am."

In two undated reflections in the same book, he wrote more plainly about what he was carrying:

"I find myself angry and judging people, tell myself I'm better, I know how I have a lot of resentments that I believe God can remove from me in His grace. God has done so many miracles, so many amazing things in my life. I can't believe all the love and beautiful things that have come in my life. So why do I keep going back to my own juggernaut self will, creating chaos and destruction of myself? I'm not a bad guy, people say hi to me and in reality not as mean as I make them out to be."

And:

"Today I found myself feeling out of place and got really nervous and told myself I had to get away from everybody because I feel like they don't like me and think I'm just weird. So I left like I always do, alone, feeling mad and lost. No place to go except my house. Then I took a walk and started feeling better. I feel very ignored by someone that I think I really like and want to get to know. The reality is she does not know me, I do not know her. I do not know her reason why she won't text back, so maybe I should ask."

He used the same notebook for other things too, including a page of plain study notes on the wording of the Second Amendment. Other pages hold the number of the New Hampshire Medicaid line, a Manchester meeting time with two eye-clinic numbers, and a page of dates and figures.

Back on the road, 2021

In May 2021, after just over three years without a license, Travis retook his written and road tests and had his driving privileges restored, on the condition that his car carry an ignition interlock. His brother helped him buy the car, and their emails with the dealer document the arrangements. By his brother's reading of the license, his new New Hampshire license was issued on May 5, 2021, three months before his death.

Something he made

Travis burned his own name into a wooden plaque, copying a Texas flag patch and putting "TRAVIS" where it said "TEXAS": a shield with a star, and the dark band of the flag below it. Photographs of the plaque survive, with his brother's account of it. David's wood burning, an acorn, is in David's story.

His death

Travis died in Laconia, New Hampshire, in mid-August 2021, at the age of 39. His death certificate, filed on August 20 and amended in November after a supplemental report, gives the cause as acute fentanyl intoxication and the manner as accident. He was cremated at the Winnipesaukee River Crematory in Northfield.

His obituary, placed with the Wilkinson-Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home in Laconia and published on 603Cremations.com, says he "passed away at his home, on Sunday, August 15, 2021." It remembers him as "known for his big smile" and says he "loved fishing, exploring the White Mountain National Forest, and harness racing. He was an experienced chef and enjoyed preparing meals for friends and family." It lists his sisters, brothers and grandparents among his survivors, and his brother Rellim James (Jimmy) Miller III as having died before him. "Travis was affected by addiction and mental illness most of his life," it says, and it asked for donations to a Laconia café that gives meals, hot showers and laundry to people in need.

Evidence note: His death certificate gives the date of death as "approximately August 15"; the crematory's certificate records it as August 17, so the exact day is not known. The two also disagree on the cremation date: August 22 on the death certificate, August 23 on the crematory's.

His brother David died a few days later, on August 19, in Colorado.

In his words

In his journal he was grateful for a warm, safe, sober night, for clean clothes, for friends who kept him from being lonely, for being "willing to love again." He was also honest that he kept going back to what he called his "juggernaut self will," and that he often left a room alone, "feeling mad and lost."

Their mother, Margery, lived with mental illness for decades, and used to say, as his brother recalled in a public post on June 9, 2018, the tenth anniversary of her death, "I'm a sickie, not a sorry. Don't look at me and feel bad. Look at me and pray I get better. It's a disease, an illness." David's story and Margery's are told alongside this one.

About the evidence

His birth, death and cremation are recorded on certificates shown on his page, with identifying numbers and addresses blacked out. His account of the September 2018 hospital night comes from his email; his February 2019 hospital stay and diagnoses come from the hospital's discharge paperwork, and his homelessness in Concord from his emails at the time. The truck, his drinking and the comparison between his diagnosis and his mother's illness come from his brother's recollection, with photographs of the truck; the journal is in Travis's handwriting. No record of his mother's medical history survives that can be seen, so for her illness a family account is the only evidence.

Sources

• State of New Hampshire, Certificate of Death, Travis Raye Oak, died approximately August 15, 2021 (masked copy on his page).
• Winnipesaukee River Crematory, certificate of cremation, Travis R. Oak, August 2021 (private original).
• Photographs, October 2014 to May 2015, and Michael Oak's account (family account).
• Travis Oak, email to the New Hampshire Board of Medicine, September 2018 (private original).
• Brattleboro Retreat, Aftercare Plan, Travis Oak, inpatient February 1-14, 2019 (hospital record; private original).
• Travis Oak, emails to Concord, New Hampshire homeless-services staff, March 2019 (his own account; private originals).
• Travis Oak, handwritten recovery journal ("Composition Book"), February-March 2020 (family collection; its written pages are shown here, with names of living and non-family people blacked out).
• Obituary of Travis Oak, Wilkinson-Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 603Cremations.com, August 2021 (shown on his page).
• Emails between Travis Oak, Michael Oak and a car dealer about Travis's restored license and car, May 2021 (private originals).
• Michael Oak, public post on the tenth anniversary of his mother's death, 9 June 2018.