Mary Ann Truax

Mary Anne (nee Quiter) Truax, beloved wife of 71 years to Byron Edwin Truax (deceased March 4, 2023), and mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, passed away in Houston, Texas on March 12, 2025. She was 97. Mary Anne was born in Elmhurst, Illinois on February 19, 1928. She graduated from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. While at DePauw and in the years after, Mary Anne was an active member of the Gamma Chapter of the Alpha Phi sorority through which she developed friendships that endured for a lifetime. After finishing her collegiate studies, Mary Anne completed a one-year internship at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit in 1950. She later became a registered dietician and a very proud member of the American Dietetic Association. Both before and after her marriage to Byron in 1952, Mary Anne at various points worked professionally as a clinical dietician in hospital settings in Chicago and later Miami, Florida where she raised her family. After moving to Blowing Rock, North Carolina in the late 1980s, Mary Anne worked as a public health nutritionist for many years, and later a dietetic consultant. Mary Anne’s commitment to her family, faith and each community where she lived defined so much about her. She possessed a deep curiosity about others and brought to every encounter a special gift of finding a common connection to the people she met, no matter one’s background or standing. After moving to Miami from the Midwest with her growing family in the late 1950s, Mary Anne along with Byron invested herself in her children’s schools and activities and in what is now known as Epiphany Cathedral. As opportunities opened for women to serve, Mary Anne became a eucharistic minister and later a lector. When she moved to Blowing Rock and worked in public health, Mary Anne developed friendships with others that reached across cultures and generations. During her retirement years, when she and Byron returned to Miami and later Venice, Florida and eventually Houston, her love of community continued to be a source of energy for Mary Anne. She was a Bronze Life Master in duplicate bridge, a recognition she earned over several decades. Yet for Mary Anne, her bridge playing abilities were mostly just a means to connect with others. Very simply, she loved people. Mary Anne was a mother of eight children, two of whom pre-deceased her (Terrence Quiter in 1956 and Byron, Jr. in 2017). She bore those losses and others, but they never defined her. Instead, she possessed a faith that provided her the grit to always look forward. Mary Anne had a quiet spirit of adventure that led her to learn to waterski in her 50s and to take up golf in retirement, even though she noted often that she did so without much talent. She was blessed along with Byron to travel overseas to Europe, remote parts of Africa, Asia and elsewhere with friends and also to visit her children who were living overseas. Again, the travel was mostly a means for Mary Anne to engage with the richness of the world. At every step she approached what was in front of her with a deep sense of gratitude. Indeed, in the days leading up to her passing, Mary Anne shared openly that she was not afraid of dying. Instead, she approached this next chapter grounded in her strong Catholic faith, “curious about what comes next”, and “deeply grateful for her family and everyone she met along her very blessed life journey.” Mary Anne leaves her legacy to a large family that survives her — six of her surviving children, Helen Truax (Ian Ross); Tom Truax (Laura Lopez), Mary Frappier (Robert), Patty Truax Stewart; Terrence (Laura Sumner) and Richard (Sally Hiserman), and her beloved nephew, Richard Quiter (Mary Therese), as well as a large cast of grandchildren and their spouses/partners, and great-children. The Truax family is enormously grateful to everyone who supported and befriended Mary Anne and Bryon over so many years, including in their final years at the Buckingham in Houston. The family is particularly grateful to the team of caregivers who lent their constant encouragement and love to Mary Anne in this last season of her life journey. The family will be celebrating a funeral mass for Mary Anne in July 2025 in Chicago, where she and Byron will be interred next to each other. Contributions in honor of Mary Anne can be made to a charity of one’s choice – just as Mary Anne would have liked it.

Mary Ann Truax

February 19, 1928 - March 12, 2025