Mr. Fox Haas 1930 - 2026
It is with heavy hearts that we share that our beloved Mr. Fox has flown up to his heavenly roost. Mr. Fox passed peacefully in his home, with his wife Evelyn and three children, Shurley, Toxey and Nina, by his side. His house was full of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren until the day he died, and through his bedroom window, turkeys and deer still passed through his backyard hardwoods.
Mr. Fox inspired a legacy that will last forever, and our woods will forever miss the presence of our wise old fox. Leave it better than you found it, raise a family, teach them to hunt and love the land, spend as much time in the woods as possible. Mr. Fox was known as a gamekeeper and the consummate woodsman - a distinction that any hunter cut from this cloth aspires to. The education of a woodsman is never finished, and Fox loved the land and wildlife dearly all his life.
Born in 1930 in Mobile, Alabama as the youngest of three sons to a World War One veteran and his loving wife, Mr. Fox loved his brothers Albert and Toxey immensely. They tore up the woods and ran the Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers and Mobile Bay. He rode his bike twenty miles to turkey hunt, and his first turkey in 1944 lit a fire that was never extinguished.
When he grew too old to walk, he spent his final years with his son Toxey and his grandsons helping him through the woods by his side.
If not for his two guardian angels, his life would have ended years ago. His wife Evelyn and West Point’s beloved family doctor Ned Miller kept Mr. Fox going. This and the anticipation of another hunting season kept him strong. Evelyn and Ned got him to the front door, and Toxey and the rest took it from there.
In these later years of declining health, there was never better medicine than looking forward to “one more time.” When he killed a turkey, he hunted that same turkey over and over again every day in his head until the calendar rolled around close enough to the next season to get him going again. When he was bedridden for all but a few days of the season, every family member or friend who got a turkey would bring it into his bedroom or bring him a feather and tell him a story, always followed by a big thumbs up and a “fantastic” in his signature southern gentleman drawl.
For Mr. Fox, “one more time” just kept happening. Mr. Fox killed his “last turkey ever” seven times over seven years, and we cherished these moments that the rest of the turkey hunting community shared with our family. His hands shook and his heart hammered until the very end.
Mr. Fox spent four years in the sanatorium with tuberculosis from ages 19 to 23. He survived with legendary resolve and patience. He was a man of honor and loyalty from a bygone way of living. He spent his entire career working for Bryan Foods, and he managed hundreds of farmer relationships with nothing more than his word and a handshake.
We’ll miss Mr. Fox forever, but especially so every spring morning in the turkey woods. His generation saved wild turkeys and did things the right way, and it’s up to all of us to carry on their legacy. He was the last of his generation of Choctaw Bluff, and, now, he rejoins his heavenly brothers of the Tenth Legion. We’ll leave it with some of Mr. Fox’s finest words:
“I believe it’s important to take care of the things we love. My friends ask me what a man my age is doing planting hardwoods. I believe the good that men do will live long after they’re gone.”
In the form of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, through Mossy Oak, around West Point, and in the woods and in the hunting world, the good he did will live long after he’s gone.
"Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches… the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work." Psalm 104:12-13
