Margaret Agnes Foster [Hutton] was born August 14, 1902 and died April 7, 1984. She was the second child of
Harriet Smith Edwards (10 June 1873 - 23 April 1943) and
Harry Walter Foster (21 July 1870 - 15 December 1944).
Margaret Agnes Foster [Hutton]
Mag at 16
The Foster family - Back row from left: Lincoln, Eleanor, Margaret, Dudley
In front Richard, Harriet Foster, Phil
Margaret as remembered by her daughter,
Joan Tooker Hutton [Landis]
My mother, Margaret Agnes, was born on August 14th, 1902.
She went to school in Roseville and later, in Morristown. She loved school and was always at the head of her class. She was supposed to go to Smith as her mother and Grandmother had but failed the physics exam. In those days you had to pass all four entrance exams. Instead of taking it over, she was sent to a finishing school in Bethlehem. Pa., Bishopthorpe Manor. She was unhappy there and did not stay the whole year. She also took courses at K. Gibbs School, worked for the Girl Scouts, was a counselor at a camp in Maine, helped run Kahdena and was often the family chauffeur, taking her brothers to Peck School, etc.
I do not know how she met my father. They married in 1929. We lived in Burnham Park, an apartment on Washington St., in New Paltz, N.Y., 99 Franklin St. and 3 Conklin Ave. (See my poem, “Addresses.”) Mother divorced Lewis in l942. We went to Florida and lived with Ms. George a friend of wonderful Mrs. Richardson who lived opposite Kahdena, and who helped Mother and me on many occasions.
Mother went to work as a secretary and finally sold the house and moved to Norfolk to help out brother Lincoln. When Linc remarried, she found a job in New Haven at a dress shop and then became secretary to Mr. Lawrence Babb at the Sterling Library. She lived at 69 Whitney Ave. Sometime in the fifties, she moved back to Falls Village to be near Bunny and Phil and Linc and Timmie Foster. She lived in a red house on Rte.7 and then moved to the gray house next to it, both belonging to Dorothy Haven, (Timmie’s Aunt) with very low rent. She worked for a Dr in Canaan and then as secretary at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville. She died on April 7, 1984, probably of an aneurysm.
My mother was an extraordinary person. She was kind, brave, empathetic, had a great sense of humor (even though she was a Republican), always trustworthy. She did have bouts of depression in later years but uncharacteristically sought help and rode them out. One of her greatest pleasures was a trip through England and Ireland with us and Ben Foster in l963. Another was her visit to Lebanon in 65. This is written up in diaries and an article she wrote for the Lakeville Journal.
In Lebanon, she stayed with us in Ainab on her arrival and held morning classes for all Dodges and Landis children in painting and drawing. Somewhere, pictures of this survive. She also loved the celebration of her 80th birthday with the whole clan in 1982.
I have just found an autobiography she wrote of her early life and will try to type it up for interested progeny. (Also, see my chapter in
Women's Re-Visions of Shakespeare: On the Responses of Dickinson, Woolf, Rich, H. D., George Eliot, and Others. Edited by Marianne Novy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990., titled “Another Penelope: Margaret Hutton Reading William Shakespeare.”)
Journal Entry
Mag Hutton, 24 February 1972
Memories of my early childhood are vague and fragmentary. Some events are remembered only as having been told to me, others are live, and perhaps some are repressed - faded photographs show me as a baby and on through my girlhood but many of the occasions these commemorate are lost to my recall.
Newark, N.J. - 423 Fourth Ave
I do remember the house in Roseville, a suburb of Newark, NJ, where we lived for about 14 years. the address
423 Fourth Ave, the telephone #556J. The neighborhood was considered a fine place to live at that time with open spaces nearby, large homes on the adjoining avenue, schools, churches, stores, a firehouse, and all the necessary suppliers for daily living were within walking distances in those horse and buggy days. To go to the railroad station in special occasions we afforded the livery station horse and carriage but just for a trip to Newark, we took the trolley cars - a walk of about five city blocks. thinking about that walk several landmarks stand out. An old ladies home, "our" church, St Thomas Episcopal across the street from the Presbyterian one,
[The only Episcopal church listed today in Roseville is St. Barnabas, founded in 1852 and across the street from the Roseville Presbyterian Church. Josh L.]
a tennis court, one of the first apartment buildings, and finally the Armory where the smell of tar bark and horses were exciting but frustratingly as we seldom saw the indoor of the building. Roseville Ave was the residential avenue of the neighborhood so most of the walk we passed lovely houses of friends and "nodding neighbors."
[About Newark: Originally the site of several large farms, the introduction of the trolley turned Roseville into a mini-city within Newark. Click here for location.Through the years, much like Newark´s Vailsburg, Weequahic and Woodside sections, Roseville developed into one of the city´s suburban-style neighborhoods. By 1917, the Newark News described the community as having "all the requisites of an independent community -- churches, schools, social and political and business organizations, the Essex Troop Armory, a Masonic temple, moving picture shows and theater." The heart of the neighborhood is at the intersection at Roseville Avenue, which runs north-south, and Orange Street, which leads to the Oranges and runs east-west.]
[
Here begins an insert of an entry written in 1970, when Mag was 68]
I think I remember the man who came around to light the street lamps, the first automobiles and the smoke and smell they left behind. Butter, eggs, milk, groceries, the fire engine were delivered by horse drawn wagons and even the doctor arrived by horse and buggy - and how dismayed I was when occasionally a horse would slip and fall on the icy street. A character with a lovely full white beard delivered fresh homemade horse-radish, cottage cheese and in season water cress. How well I remember seeing him come down the alley between our house and the Pryor's next door with his basket on his arm to make his sales.
Our homes were lighted by gas, heated by coal, and cooking in winter by coal and summer by a gas stove. Therefor we had to have an icebox on the back porch which was filled every other day by the burly iceman carrying in a large block of ice on his shoulders and swung about by ice-tongs.
On the block where we lived there were but five houses. Each had a back yard but the one on the corner had a large garden taking up part of our block. I how I used to envy that lovely yard. To go to school we had a short walk but in the early days part of the way was through what we called the "woods" along a dirt path beside a high wooden fence. Most of my bad dreams seemed to take place in that vicinity. Our part of the city was partly country - a golf club, a tennis court and a large truck farm were part of the neighborhood. in the winter we coasted down a hill from the tennis court or on any street with a slope. In spring and fall we roller skated. I still can hear the sound the skates made over the cracks between the paving stones before the day of cement sidewalks.
Sunday School
We went each Sunday to Sunday School to the neighborhood Episcopal church just a block and a half away. I still have the Bible I was awarded for "faithful attendance." Each Sunday we were given a card about an inch square, then for four of these we received a larger one and I've forgotten how many were needed for a book or award. Each card had a picture either of flowers or a religious subject. Later I went to dancing school held in the parish house and how well I remember the first year end dance where I was escorted there by a boy.
Clothes
My mother had made me a pink dotted Swiss dress with a pink satin bolero jacket, which was tied with long pink ribbons in the end of which were tiny ribbon flowers!! But oh how embarrassing to be called for to take me home by my father and by my failure to say goodbye to my escort. I caused him to cease to be my especial friend - and I think he didn't speak to me again although I remember his name so well - Melvin Henry Mather Jackley.
Another fad of costume in those days for dancing school was a full taffeta skirt worn over a chiffon blouse. We carried our dancing slippers in an especially made cloth bag and changed in the rooms under the stage. It was for this dancing class that my brother Dudley arranged with out much success to furnish the music by radio. He hooked his home made set up to a Victrola horn but as this all was in the experimental stage of broadcasting music the results were not good. There were no broadcasting stations, just individual persons playing a Victrola over his own set. All sending was done in Morse code and received with ear phones so the occasion of music and talking over the air was a great one.
Two Scary Events
Two events which had a lasting effects on our future behavior come to mind. One day as a treat, mother took Dudley, Eleanor (still young enough to be pushed in a baby carriage) and me with a neighborhood friend to walk to Branch Brook Park. We picnicked by a pond and were playing around when some one screamed. Eleanor had fallen in the water. Her full dress had filled with air so as to keep her afloat. Mother stepped out to the rescue and sank down to her neck in a hole. Dudley (about five years old) started out of help. I screamed on the shore as I watched mother reaching for El and trying to keep Dud back. A man with a broken arm heard the commotion and with his help all were safely brought to shore. Vaguely I remember a feeling of embarrassment as we trudged home, mother, dud, and El dripping wet. forever afterwords, El was scared of water. Later when we vacationed in Milton and went to the stream to swim or go out in our row boat, El wouldn't go in the boat and tried to keep us ashore. I think she finally did go in the water but very fearfully. The stream had a muddy bottom and we had to examine our bodies carefully after our swims to dislodge the bloodsuckers (leeches) which might attach themselves to our skin. they stuck - hence the way we use the word leech today to denote...
The street at the corner was paved with cobble stones and the firehouse was near. How often we were awakened in terror as the whistles screamed, the horses pulling the engines clattered over the stones racing to a fire. So one day when I was playing around the corner with friends I ran home in fear as I heard that our house was on fire. There were the fire engines hosing through the upstairs window. Mother was visiting across the street, grandfather was at home in his room on the 3rd floor when he smelled smoke. He phoned (556J) the firehouse and called my mother. she looked across the street to see flames shooting out of the bedroom window. The story goes that Lincoln, then about 3 year as old and his friend Stewart had made a tent of bed clothes under fathers bed. Climbed on a chair reached the matches, which were on the mantle piece, and playing Indians lit a fire. in those days little boys wore cotton suits and the two young playmates could have seriously burned but for my grandfather's presence of mind. All I really remember is the horrid smell left in the house after the fire was extinguished but that episode served as a lesson to all of us. I remind you that matches were a necessity as light was provided by gas. Dangerous too as Eleanor supposed to be napping had turned on the gas jet, saved from asphyxiation when mother smelled the escaping gas, turned it off, opened the windows and got my sister out of the room. She, Eleanor, also locked herself in the bathroom and couldn't open the door. Only by getting a ladder and having a neighbor climb through the window was the door unlocked.
All in all the past 70 years I've seen so many scientific and industrial changes it is hard to believe. Developments in cars, radio, TV housing, paper products, airplane travel, exploration of the moon to mention just a few. Not including wars and weapons. What have we in the 68 years I have lived, in the name of freedom and progress left to our descendants?!
....
Two world wars - "to make the world safe for democracy," the Korean and Viet Nam Wars, the muddle in the Near East are not events to have lived through and remembered with assurance of a better civilization to come.
[This ends the insert of the 1970 record and resumes the 1972 journal entry]
All of this goes back to 1902 when I was born the second child in the family which expanded to six - four boys and two girls. My mother's father lived with us, a maid lived in, so we were rather a full house.
Arthur Mead Edwards - Grandfather
Grandfather, Arthur Mead Edwards, was an aristocratic, fine looking man of six feet in height, and as I remember him, gray hair and mustache, gold-rimmed eye glasses who seemed so tall. he was a great walker interested in many sciences, so he pursued this interest far and wide, collecting specimens of algae, mosses, plants, seeds, all of which he experimented with and studied. His microscope was much in use and we were allowed to gaze to our wonder at wiggling "creatures" and thing I did not understand. He had a large correspondence with many famous scientists around the world and his library was a vast one on many subjects. His interest in botany and related subjects was no doubt, inspired from his British uncle, Sir James Edward Smith, who had purchased the library and specimens of the famed Linnaeus and given them to the government of Britain thus starting the Linnaean Society which is still in existence in London, established about 17...
This grandfather was born in NYC 1844, educated at Columbia College medical school where he later taught. it was there he me, Emma Ward, a native of Newark, NJ, who was his pupil. She was on of the first women being educated at a Medical school. they were married about 1870-71 and lived in the house in Newark, the third house to be built on the original plot of land granted to John Ward (See Lyon's Memorial Volume) with Robert Treat to plot and settle Newark. The Newark Library now stands on this property on Washington Street.
My mother, Harriet Smith Edwards and her sister Eleanor Pierrepont, were born there in 1873 and 1875. As I remember being told, Grandpa was invited to be a professor at the University of Tokyo, Japan so he and his family set out sometime in about 1882-83 for Berkeley, California, where he would give a series of lectures before taking the steamer across the Pacific. The trip by train as described by my mother as she remembered it was a long and dirty one with many stops. Some of her most fascinating stories were about the dirty, smelly Indians, who pushed their way among the passengers. to a young girl of 10 years they must have seemed like savages as some cruel persons then called them. We must remember the West was being settled in the 1880s and the Indians were being fought and persecuted, alas. In my childhood I had a fondness for Indians and my brothers and sisters took Indian names, built lean-tos and acted out our parts. By 1900, due to several writers to whom we were exposed, attitudes had changed and the Indian life became romantic to us, i.e. Hiawatha, Burroughs, etc.
The two girls caught whooping cough at Berkeley and Grandpa, aged 40 caught it from them, suffered a stroke, so all future plans must be remade. To the honor of my grand mother, whom I never knew, she took her ailing husband and two girls back across the country to Newark, where she became the bread winner as a physician. Her sister Alicia Ward, also studied medicine and became an industrial doctor - never married and I vaguely remember he as a grand person. She must have impressed me more than I realized because when my brother Philip was two or three years old, I used to dress him in girls clothes, brush his blond curly hair into ringlets and call him Alice Ward.
Somehow it is difficult to recall much about my grandpa Edwards as he died in 1914 when I was 12, but I believe he had an excellent mind, an inquiring intellect and a great interest in the expanding and developing sciences. I do know he was trying to find a source of sap or other substance from which to make rubber. He predicted walkie-talkies and much else that has come to pass. Much I know and my interest in wild lowers and birds I must have picked up from him as his knowledge of the flora and fauna was really scientific to be passed on through my mother and to us her children. Some of his treatises on mosses, grasses, etc. are in the Yale Library.
My grandfather Foster, born in England, immigrated to Newark about 1871 when my father was a year old. I remember as he lived until about 1929, after his 80th birthday. He was not a college educated person but had a memory of many songs and anecdotes with which to amuse us children and a beautiful singing voice. He was a member of the church choir up until age 70 or so.
My other
Grandmother, Agnes Perry Foster, too had died before the turn of the century. Therefore I never knew a grandmother and used to say to my mother that I hoped she lived to be a grandmother to my child or children.
Mother - Harriet Smith Edwards
My mother, Harriet, the elder of the two daughters was born in Newark, NJ in 1873, went to Smith College, then later to teachers college in N.Y. so she could run a kindergarten in her home. Her sister Eleanor about 2 years younger must have been quite different in character. I remember her as a beautiful woman always dressed in the best taste, and after her marriage to Howard Adams, lived in Baltimore, Md., apparently well provided with money. I visited her once in her lovely home and I recall being waited on by a butler. She apparently was more worldly than my mother, who took life seriously, always trying to help the less fortunate and who was quite religious, as her mother must have been as the altar in the House of Prayer, the High Episcopal Church in Newark, was given in memory of the Edwards.
Father - Harry Foster
My father sang in the choir at the
House of Prayer, (also see
this) as did his father and it was there he met and courted my mother. A bundle of his letters give me the impression that he was romantic. He realized his deficiencies (he was hunchbacked, was most neat and otherwise a good looking man) as to education and background, money and family. After a rather lengthy courtship, they were married January 25, 1900. Father, I believe was still in the jewelry business. Just when he and his brother John opened a drug store in Roseville, I'm not quite sure. I remember the store, which was not too far from our house, the soda counter and the red and green bottles (customary of all druggists) in the window.
Father's Businesses
Later father tried other ventures, one of the first to manufacture a hand manipulated washing machine, a one burner oil kerosene plate for cooking - a kerosene iron and a hand driven vacuum cleaner, all before electricity took over. He then took up making cigarettes with a sulfur tip that lit by being struck on the box that contained them. Two of the names I remember were "auto-light" and "monolight" guaranteed to light in wind or rain, this being before the day of safety matches, book matches or lighters. I dimly recall the Turkish man who bought the tobacco - Mercury Athanatius?. and believe it was the first time I saw a man wearing a fez. Then I believe father was a partner in a Bank - some trouble - perhaps embezzlement by a member - created trouble of which I was vaguely aware but knew I felt shame and apprehension as father might be considered liable and guilty. What really happened I don't know as I was too young to learn the facts. With two other of his brothers, Charles and William, father then went into the hardware business.
Morristown
When in 1918 we moved to Morristown, father was partly retired but in a year or two purchased a hardware store there which he ran until he finally had to go out of business after the depression and the U.S. entry into World War II. At one time father must have made money - perhaps before 1929 because he said that he was worth a quarter of a million on paper. Perhaps he invested mother's inherited money to good advantage - or the store made money for we lived well. We had always had servants - mostly colored people - a wash woman came three or four days a week and I remember how I used to love to watch, talk to and listen to one of them who was part Indian. Her tales were fascinating.
Cars
Father bought a car as we lived a couple of miles from town and I learned to drive the Chevrolet. The principal of the High School and I were the only two people to park our cars during the school day in the old barn behind the school. Morristown was a town where many wealthy people lived so there were automobiles but most were chauffeur driven. This must have been about 1919 when I became the family driver. After the "Chevie" we had a Ford "Model T," a station wagon with three seats across, curtains with Mica windows.
1918 Chevrolet Series 490: Open-bodied cars like the Chevrolet Series 490
were popular due to lower cost.
Ford Model T - 1917
Because of foot pedals there were open spaces in the floor so water could splash through and in cold weather I was never without arctics on. By this time, I was out of school and my daily schedule of transporting the various members was quite involved. Dudley and Eleanor were the first to be taken. She to the 7:45 a.m. train to go to Newark to art school and Dudley who was then an electrical engineer at his first job to the factory where he worked from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Back home to take Lincoln to high school, father to his store and Dick and Phil to a private school - Miss Thomas' Maybe I'd pick up the wash woman and bring her out for the day. Mother usually went shopping in th emorning - another trip for me. Then pick up the younget boys and father for lunch. Take father back, meet Eleanor at the train later in the afternoon, later take the washwoman home, get Dudley from the factory and father from his store. If one of th boys or I went to a game at the high school or the movies or maybe it was a choir rehearsal - a cout meeting or some entertainment it was o the road again in the evening. Needless to say I wore out many clothes just putting them on and tking them off. I remained the chauffeur for ten years except for the six months I was at boarding school. Dudley went ot Chicago to work, Eleanor never could learn to drive nor could mother or father. As the youner boys grew old enough they were off at college so it all was mostly my chore. We had at times the Ford station wagon (after the Chevie) and a Packard true six - an open car just useful in the summer.
Packard Six, 1921
The road in winter were never plowed so if possible to drive at all in the snow with th e hard tires of that era we had to put on chains. Such a cold chore - the ruts in the road made by the traffic froze, making turning or passing a hazard. The chains broke but the mud guards making holes in them. If not fixed soon enough and one winter we couldn't drive the car for six weeks as even had to garage our neighbor's car as they lived beyond us up a quite a hill on a private road. The fact Kahdena Park where we lived was a small suburban area of five houses apposite a beautiful estate, the Gustav Kissell place, home of one of the millionaires of that opulent period with a polo field, farmers house, coachman's house (where I lived for awhile after I was married) stables, a gardener's house etc. See map opposite.
[Gustave Kissell, a NY banker, died in 1911 and left his wife Caroline Thorn Kissell over 1,2 million dollars. He left his sons large amounts as well. Across the street from the Fosters' house was the house of Charles F Cutler, who was often written up in the NYTimes society pages, such as this. A short history of Morristown states that in "1900 – many of the nation’s wealthy discovered Morristown and settled in the area, especially the four mile stretch of Madison Avenue from Morristown east to Madison. Some of the most opulent mansions were those of Otto H. Kahn, Hamilton McKeon Twombly, Charles Mellon, Eugene Higgins, the Frelinghuysens, Claflins, James, Allens, Wolffs and Kountzes. In the 1930's and the 1940's – the large Madison Avenue mansions were gradually demolished in response to the national income tax and to avoid rising property taxes, increased cost of domestic help and the rising cost of living."]
We, being the new comers, were not considered in the same "class" as the Halls, Cutlers, and Pawles. These three had more money and were not "in trade." The Halls and Cutlers having made money in the telephone co.
By 1923-24, I was driving one of the first air-cooled cars, a Franklin, but what a chore it was to start it on cold mornings. Rags soaked in hot water put on the pipes in the engine often did the trick taking up much time but finally some one installed a heating wire connected to the battery, which heated the manifold and gas to aid in starting. Another Franklin followed, a beautiful car, dark blue with dark blue broadcloth upholstery, a silver bud vase, its own suitcases which fitted in the trunk of the car and the body was aluminum so advertised as light, comfortable and using less gasoline.
School Days
After 65 years, I can still recall the books of my kindergarten teacher, Miss Dodd, the school room, and the location of this room. One of my memories of this early period of my training, (perhaps because I felt complimented) was praise for my ability to use my hands especially folding paper and making boxes neatly. Faces or figures of other teachers (this not always the names) come to mind. Discipline was strict and I'm sure I was a goodie-goodie as I can't recall being kept in after school, one form of correction for wrong doing. Nor being sent to the Principal. Fortunately, I liked school and was always either first, second or occasionally third at the head of the class. Spelling was easy for me and I doted on mental arithmetic. When I first went to school it was called the Seventh Street School.
Read about North Seventh Street School by clicking here. and its principal Thomas T Collard in
Essex county, N.J., illustrated,
Published in 1897. Turn to page 89.
Just about two city blocks away but one block was underdeveloped and we walked through what we called "the woods" via a dirt path beside a high wooden fence which enclosed the property of the adjoining piece of land a city block deep. Well I remember one large tree whose raised roots caused a detour in the path. Many of my "bad" dreams occurred in this woods. Later, of course, this piece of property was "developed". Now I wouldn't call it that. A paved street was made and an apartment house built so all the trees, wild flowers and our "woods" were gone.
Later this school became the Garfield School. [
1894 - Garfield School erected (1893-1894); enlarged 1897-1914.
See map] I remember a bit of doggerel about our Principal.
A little bird was flying south,
With Lone T Collard in his mouth,
But when he found him such a fool,
He dropped him down on Garfield School.
Mr. Collard to me was a nonentity. He seemed with his black beard, pasty face and partly bald head to lack character and force. Entering his office by the front door was a place I never entered so how could I judge the man? Boys and girls at this date (1906-1916) each had a separate entrance and court yard, this we were not segregated in class, and we never entered the "front door."
I can hear even now the ring of our roller skates on the pavements, the clatter of hanging them on a hook in the cloak room and wearing our skate key on a cord around our heads. (We had no separate lockers in those days.) We also jumped rope, perhaps during recess so if we arrived early before the bell rang for classes. My outstanding achievement and one I never lost was my prowess at playing jacks. In the spring when th boys got out their marbles and the marble bags, we girls got ready our jacks and ball and the bag to carry them in. I was allowed to play marbles once in awhile with my brothers had never felt accomplished a I did with jacks.
After graduating from the 8th grade at Garfield School, I went to Barringer (sic.) High, quite a distance to walk - but a nice walk through branch Brook Park on Park Ave. to the heights above on which the school rose. Again I had no difficulty in my school work. Only two year were spent here as the family moved to Morristwn at the beginning of June 1918, near the end of my sophomore year. For two weeks Dudley and I finished out the term by bus, train and walking finished out the term at Barrington (sic). Though we had moved but about 25 miles from Newark, travel was not an easy matter. We loved our new house as it was larger, had ample grounds and lawns and was quite in the country.
Again I was happy at school, did well except in Latin and graduated in 1920. The country was celebrating the bicentennial of the landing fo the pilgrims so our graduating theme was patriotic. All I can remember of the valedictory I gave was the closing - an excerpt from James Russell Lowell's "Present Crisis" - ending with "footsteps in the sands of time." The graduation exercises too place in the morning, late in June, there I had to hasten to another school to take the final of four college board exams, one in physics. this I learned in August, i had failed, and to be admitted to Smith College, (mother's alma mater) at that time, all four comprehensives exams must be passed. so I always felt this changed my life. I must have been a most spiritless girl. - 18 years old that August, as I docilely accepted the plan to send me off to boarding school. Bishopthorpe Manor, Bethlehem, Penn. was chosen (by what criteria I don't know).
Black and white Postcard. 1911?
Side view of Bishopthorpe Manor, partially obscured by trees, Bethlehem, Pa., Picture postcard, Date: 1909? [Read
this short history of the school written in 1919]
Mother did fit me out with a lovely wardrobe, hats made to order of dureteen, (sp?) corsets created and fitted on me, evening dresses, one a pink satin made over from one Aunt Eleanor Adams sent and another a blue chiffon made with a stylish harem shirt were included. I did assert myself by insisting my shoes were to be oxfords not the usual high laced ones we all wore those days. I even took part of my graduation present money to buy them.
I did not belong in such a cloistered atmosphere. My roommate wasrather stupid, homely and not congenial. I did make friends but something was missing. I did not fit in. My studies were easy and my marks excellent. Home for Thanksgiving bringing Rose Barr with me. Mother made it a gala occasion. there came the Xmas holiday. Back in January I realized how unhappy I was. We walked to church two by two along the side walks cynosure of all eyes. We were chaperoned everywhere we went.
We were invited to a dance at a boys prep school there in Bethlehem, nicknamed the "Angel Factory" as the students were being educated for entrance to the Episcopal Ministry. I had no social graces and felt I was a complete failure as one poor boy, too polite to leave me, was stuck with me sitting on the side lines for far too long.
At last my cries home must have been heard and considered for I was allowed to leave and return home in February. I never knew how my family felt. I was accepted and home-life was as usual. I was free. This was in 1920-21. I was 18 years old! I then took over being the family chauffeur and general help. Any further education came from my own efforts, reading, teaching Philip one year, and just living.
Looking Back
How difficult it is to know one's parents. As I reflect back I realize my childhood must have been in a rather good routine surroundings, influence I'm sure by my mother. She was well educated, religious, energetic, romantic (I believe) and evidently her family had enough money to live well. She was kind, charitable to many people, always took part in church work - but although she may have been sentimental she showed no outward affection to us children.
We two older children had a nursemaid and I suppose a cook or housekeeper. The younger children did not, as I imagine finances didn't allow that. I never heard gossip or loose talk. Never saw mother in a temper although I can remember hearing, after I had been put to bed, some arguing or loud talk between mother and father which frightened me, and I knew I prayed that God would not let them have a real fight. I was a timid child who hated fighting and it wasn't until I was in my teens that Dudley finally said to me, "fight back," to someone who was being mean to me.
Mother set a good example in her diction and disposition. I have her to thank for some of my background in pronunciation and grammar. Her background was one of an educated family as bother her father and mother were college graduates in medicine. In fact, her mother, Emma Ward Edwards, was one of the first women to be admitted to a college of medicine and to receive many accolades as a practicing physician in Newark, N.J. a "horse and buggy lady doctor." Naturally mother was sent to college, Smith in Northampton, Mass., where she made many life-long friends. She then went on to train as a teacher at Teachers College in New York and opened her own kindergarten.
The tragic (I so call it as it was never discussed) death of her mother in Florida must have affected the family severely.
Always religious, mother took an active part in church affairs at the House of Prayer where the alter was in memory of her mother. Father and his father sang in the church choir and it is there father and mother met and courted. I have read letters written during this courtship of about three years and in these letters they recount meetings at church, bird walks. (I possess an annotated bird book with dates of sightings) and family doubts about the engagement.
Mother continued her devotions and church work all of her life. she wrote hymns and devotional poems which father had privately printed. We had morning family prayers in the English tradition. every morning when I was young. We then had household help. Later these were discontinued as the family enlarged and help was scarce. We always went to Sunday School and Sunday was a day for walks or trolley rides in the afternoons.
[End of Mag's Journals]
Margaret's Wedding to Lewis Tooker Hutton II
Grandma Mag left an envelope with four wedding pictures (19 June 1929) of her and Lewis Tooker Hutton II. With them, she left a sad note that I copy below.
Margaret weds Lewis Tooker Hutton II on June 19, 1929
Stewart Gatter, the grandson of Julia Ann Lyon [stewart] and son of Mary Stewart [Gatter] was Lewis II's best man at his wedding to Margaret Foster.
Joan and Margaret in 1930
Joshua Landis wrote:
One cannot help but wonder why Mag married Lewis. The way my mother explained it to me is as follows: Harriet Foster had terrible rheumatoid arthritis, which seriously restricted her movement and made her last years a battle against pain and joints that would not work. Mag assumed much of the household work and had to drive her brothers around. She never went to college. At 27 years old, Mag must have felt that she was getting old and might miss motherhood. These were perhaps reasons that she married Lewis II - to get out of the house, stop being mother to her brothers, gain independence, and get wed. Evidently, she and Lewis - who drove one of the few other cars in Morristown - often passed each other and waved. He was dashing. They married. Who knows what he was looking for, perhaps a mother.
Mag was a wonderfully warm and kind person. I always loved visiting her in the little gray salt-box house she lived in on Rt 7, just outside of Falls Village, Conn. When Dad quit First National City Bank (Citi Bank) in 1967, we stayed with her for about 6 months, which I enjoyed very much. I hated the terrible public school in Falls Village, where kids still got ring worm and a number of those picked up by my school-bus still had out houses and were quite poor. The school was a big step down from ACS in Beirut.
But living with grandma was a delight. She took me on bird walks, nature walks and taught me many of the flowers in her garden, such as Johnny Jump Ups, Daisies, Lady Slippers, phlox, Hydrangeas, and many more. During a single day in May, we spotted somewhere around 100 different kinds of birds. I will never forget seeing a Blackburnian Warbler with her. She also taught me to knit, crochet and sew. She was a card shark and taught us crazy eights, hearts, spades and other games. I watched in envy as she did endless cross-word puzzles, completing the NY Sunday Times puzzle, invariably in less than 15 minutes. Us boys inherited Grandpa Louis' dyslexia so we could only look on with envy at her wonderful visual memory and all the word games it allowed her to excel at, such as scrabble, Jeopardy, and cross-word puzzles. She could remember any name or number from her past, a gift that Joan inherited but neglected to pass on to her children!
I watched my first football games with her. She was a big Dallas Cowboys fan. Linc would come over to watch with her from time to time, which was good fun. We all loved Linc, who had a biting sense of humor and was good fun. It also gave us a chance to get to know her other brother who lived in the neighborhood, Phil and his wife, Bunny. We got to know the Sinclairs as well, Linc's wife's children. I would always sneak downstairs early in the morning so I could steal a few minutes alone with Mag, as she drank her cup of coffee and had a piece of toast in the morning.
When I drove up to Vermont in May 1976 with Harlen Stabler, my girlfriend my freshman year at Swarthmore, we stayed with Mag. I was surprised to discover that Mag had moved down from her bedroom upstairs so that we could have the double bed. When I sneaked down the stairs the next morning to have our cup of coffee, I asked her why she was so liberal in her sleeping arrangements. She responded, "Why should I mind? I am only jealous because I don't have anyone to sleep with me." We laughed. That was Mag, kind, self-effacing, and sturdy.
Mag in 1936 [Photo of Mag sent to Joshua by Kit Foster on January 4, 2010]
Lincoln Foster and Reggie, his first wife (Linc is Mag's brother and the father of Ben): Photo sent by Kit Foster on January 4, 2010
Phil Foster, little Joan Hutton and Mag Foster [Hutton] in 1936: Photo sent by Kit Foster on January 4, 2010]
[Mag and Ben 1936: photo sent by Kit Foster January 4, 2010
Mag and Little Dudley, who was born in 1935. (1936)
Mag's interment in Vermont at Pig in the Poke, 1988
Ethan, Joshua, Joan, Chris. Grandma was cremated after her death in 1984 and mother kept her ashes hanging around for a number years before we buried her. We always promised that we would get a proper gravestone made for her, but didn't. We placed a marble cornerstone that was to have been used to mark the property line at Pig in the Poke on her grave instead.
She gave birth to
Joan Tooker Hutton, her only child, on April 22, 1930.
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