Alvin Boone Straight was your typical older man in many ways. His health was declining, his eyesight was failing him, and he was living month to month on Social Security checks.
On the outside, the 73-year-old veteran was unassuming and stoic.
However, when tragedy struck for Alvin and one of his family members got sick, he would go to remarkable lengths to be reunited with his kin, who was hundreds of miles away.
Since his eyesight was so poor, he’d had to give up his driver’s license, meaning taking a car to his sick brother was out of the question.
Money was tight, and although Alvin could likely afford the bus ticket from Iowa to Wisconsin, he didn’t trust the driver to get him there safely.
There was only one option: fire up his riding lawn mower and attach a trailer to it. Alvin then set off on a 240-mile adventure to reunite with his unwell brother.
Though, as you can imagine, the journey wasn’t smooth sailing. The odds were against Alvin. Would he reach his final destination successfully?
The Early Life Of Alvin Straight
Little is known about Alvin’s childhood and youth. We do know he was born in Scobey, Montana, in 1920. After meeting his future wife, Frances, in 1946, the young couple moved to Iowa, where Alvin found work as a laborer.
The couple would go on to have seven children—two girls and five boys—so Alvin had to work hard to ensure the family’s well-being.
However, marital bliss was interrupted when Alvin was drafted into World War II, where he served as a private first class.
Upon returning home, he only had a few years of normality before the United States entered the Korean War in 1950. Again, Alvin had to leave his family.
He would return home as a veteran and live the quiet life of a devoted family man for the next four decades. As the years passed, Alvin’s health would slowly decline.
He suffered from diabetes, lung disease, and increasingly poor eyesight. Many of these ailments are expected from a man in his 70s.
What Alvin would do despite these ailments most definitely was not expected.
The 240-Mile Road Trip
In the summer of 1994, Alvin received troubling news from his family. His brother, Henry, was in poor health after suffering a stroke.
While Henry had been through a few health scares before—just a few years earlier, Alvin had braced himself to say goodbye to his older sibling, but the 80-year-old pulled through—Alvin was adamant he would be by his brother’s side before he passed.
The only trouble was getting to Wisconsin. It was hundreds of miles away.
Alvin could no longer legally drive and couldn’t rely on anyone to drive him the 240 miles to be with his brother. So, he headed to his garage and dusted off his lawn tractor. It was old and had seen better days, but it was the only mode of transport he could—legally, at least—drive.
Being a practical and resourceful man, Alvin knew he couldn’t simply hop on his mower and take off to Wisconsin. He knew it would take weeks to get there, and he’d need supplies, shelter, and somewhere to store gas for the mower.
So, after dusting off the machine and doing some maintenance, he attached a trailer to the mower. This would hold all the necessities he’d need to get to his destination comfortably. At least, as comfortable as you can be when traveling via lawn mower.
On July 5, Alvin set off, ready to drive along busy highways and lonely country roads to get to his brother. Roughly three hours later, his old mower gave up on him. Alvin had to be towed back home by a kind passerby.
This could have been the end of Alvin’s story, and it would still have been an interesting tale to tell. After all, attempting to drive 240 miles on a mower is no small feat. But Alvin refused to give up, and the setback didn’t stop him from continuing his plan.
Alvin figured using his old lawn mower was out of the question, so he bought a 1966 John Deere mower, attached his ready-packed trailer to it, and set off once more.
Again, things didn’t go smoothly. The mower broke down after just over thirty miles into the 240-mile stretch. Alvin didn’t give up—he used some of his limited funds to buy tools and spare parts to fix the mower.
While fixing the broken mower, a stranger, moved by his unique story of driving to his sick brother, allowed Alvin to camp out on his front lawn.
When the old mower was deemed roadworthy again, Alvin hit the shoulder of the Iowa highway. Drivers raced past him as he chugged along at a modest speed, unsure of what they’d just witnessed.
When it got too dark to drive, and Alvin was exhausted from the continuous driving, he’d set up camp on a safe section of the shoulder. He’d eat his food, get a good night’s sleep, and do it all over again the next day.
There were only two things that could prevent Alvin from reaching Wisconsin: his mower breaking down irreparably or running out of money. He’d already dealt with the issue of the mower breaking down.
When he was just over 100 miles away from his destination, he encountered the second problem: running out of funds.
Alvin lived a frugal life on his monthly Social Security checks. When money dried up around the halfway point of the trip, he had no choice but to stop driving until his next Social Security check came in.
It wasn’t like Alvin simply sat by the side of the road and waited for the money to arrive; he used his spare time to visit one of his children who lived nearby.
When the check finally came in, Alvin set off on the highway. By August 15, he’d managed to cross into Wisconsin, but yet again, the mower failed him. He was barely two miles from his brother’s home.
Luckily, a local farmer spotted Alvin by his mower and offered some assistance. The pair pushed the John Deere to Henry’s home.
The journey had taken six weeks, had encountered multiple roadblocks, and ended up being quite the adventure for a man in his 70s. His mower’s maximum speed was five mph, meaning the journey would never be completed quickly.
However, it’s doubtful even Alvin thought it would take as long as it did.
Luckily, by the time Alvin had made it to Henry’s home near Blue River, he’d somewhat recovered from his stroke. Not fully, but enough to let Alvin drive him to and from the local bar on his trusty mower.
Alvin stayed in Wisconsin for a few weeks, enjoying time with his sibling and driving him around town on his John Deere.
When Alvin decided it was time to go home, he left the mower behind and accepted a lift from a family member. The journey home was mere hours in comparison to the six weeks it took to get there.
After the amazing journey Alvin had completed, Henry decided to move to Iowa to be closer to his brother.
The media caught wind of Alvin’s incredible feat and did their best to get interviews and pictures of him. However, he was a private man who didn’t mean to court such attention from the press and mostly shunned the newfound fame he received.
He did, however, accept a brand new John Deere mower from the Texas Equipment Company, Inc., after the company owner, Paul Condit, came to learn of Alvin’s amazing journey.
Still, the press and media were understandably intrigued by the story and wanted to know more. The impressive feat could easily have been the script of a Hollywood movie: an older man does whatever it takes to be reunited with his family despite the numerous obstacles thrown in his way.
Naturally, Hollywood picked up on Alvin’s story and fought for the rights to turn it into a big-screen drama.
Alvin Goes To Hollywood
In 1996, aged 76, Alvin Straight passed away. Although he’d lived a full life, he was notoriously quiet and stoic, meaning he’d done his best to avoid the press and movie moguls wanting his story.
The big talk shows of the time, such as David Letterman and Jay Leno, would invite Alvin to tell his story to their millions of viewers, but the humble man would always decline.
That didn’t stop movie producers from clambering to obtain the rights to his unique story, despite Alvin’s wish to live in anonymity.
In 1999, David Lynch’s film “The Straight Story” was released. The biographical tale of Alvin focused primarily on his 240-mile journey to his sick brother, with Richard Farnsworth taking on the role of Alvin.
The movie was filmed in the exact locations Alvin had traversed and depicted the heartwarming tale of two brothers reuniting. It was met with critical acclaim.
After Alvin passed away on November 9, 1996, it was only fitting that his mower—complete with his trailer attached—followed the hearse.
Sources
https://alchetron.com/Alvin-Straight
https://www.theattic.space/home-page-blogs/2023/9/29/8jx36sr3vtvluzdk1uj4uhcu10jvdy
Leave a comment