Francis Foster interview 5 (2006-05-15)

              VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY 
JAMES BRANCH CABELL LIBRARY, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS 
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT: TWENTIETH CENTURY RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 
 
NARRATOR: DR. FRANCIS M. FOSTER, SR. 
INTERVIEWER: KATHRYN COLWELL HILL 
Place:		Cabell Room				No. of CDs: 2 
		James Branch Cabell Library		No. of tracks: 3 
		Virginia Commonwealth University		Length of interview: 123 minutes 
Date:    	May 15, 2006				Interview: 5 of 5		 
 
Counter Index	Topic of Discussion 
[CD 1 of 2, Fifth Interview May 15, 2006] 
0:00:00		Introductions  
0:02:20		Ada Foster Fisher: Eldest Sibling 
0:19:47		Rev. Miles and Ada Fisher: Early Influence 
0:20:54		James Jackson (cousin): Labor Organization, Richmond Tobacco Workers 
0:36:41		Richmond Streets Named for Historic African Americans 
0:39:44		Extended Foster Family: Accomplishments 
0:47:10		Christopher Foster (father):  Name Change 
0:49:53		Development of African American Intellectuals 
0:55:27		Family Values: Integrity, Honesty, Loyalty 
1:06:11		End of first CD 
[CD 2 of 2, Fifth Interview May 15, 2006] 
0:00:12		Dorothy Chase Hisle (wife): Meeting and Marriage 
0:06:50		Kermit Foster (brother): Career at the VA and Mars Candy Company 
0:16:20		Dr. Francis and Dorothy Hisle Foster: Marriage, early years 
0:22:42		Dr. Foster’s Poetry 
0:36:20		Future Plans: Love for Local History 
0:46:26		End of second CD 
[End of Fifth Interview] 
 
 
[CD 1 of 2] 
Interview 5, Track 1 
Track time: 0:07:28 
Introductions 
       Kathryn Colwell Hill:	Today is May 15, 2006.  This is the fifth, and final, interview with Dr. Francis M. Foster, Sr. here at the Cabell Room [James Branch Cabell Library, VCU].  I am Kathryn Colwell Hill, the interviewer.   
	We are going to start today with continued thoughts about Dr. Foster’s involvement with the community; his reacting to what is happening currently; and, I would say, how he compliments, encourages, and guides others to a fuller understanding of this community that we all cherish, which is Richmond. 
	Dr. Foster, do you want to give a bit of background about your letter?  I know that you have [written] a letter to the editor of the Richmond Times Dispatch, which was unpublished.  
	Francis Merrill Foster:	Quite a few days ago, there appeared in the Times Dispatch an article by Ray McAllister.  It was really sort of a review of VCU’s new Photographic History of the University done by Ray Bonis, Jodi Koste, and— (pause)—Curtis Lyons.  I should not forget his name because I work in the Lyons building all of the time. 
	I wrote, (reading from letter) 
Dear Editor.   
 
Ray McAllister’s charming review of the VCU Archivists’ Photographic History of the University was excellently done.  It brought back a special fond memory of my first early educational blessing from this school.  In 1939, the Ritter-Hickok House was purchased by the newly named Richmond Professional Institute of William and Mary College.  It was here that I and my Virginia Union colleague and classmate Simeon Booker, Jr. enjoyed sessions with Clement Wood, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet.  He had been appointed Poet in Residence at RPI.  Booker was an on-campus VUU student and there was always on his desk a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus, and Clement Wood’s Rhyming Dictionary.  Since we were both passionate about writing protest poetry, we wrote Mr. Wood before he arrived—we had gotten his address, and they told us how to contact him, and we wrote him—we told him that we were students here writing poetry and asked if he would look at some of our works when he got here.  He replied affirmatively and invited us to attend his appearance at the Poetry Society of Virginia at the segregated Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.   
 
Now despite the state laws on segregation and prevailing policy, we figured nothing ventured nothing gained and we took our chances on being allowed to come in.  We came in and took back seats and Clement Wood came in with a red tuxedo and also with a lot of pizzazz.  He spoke on the roots of our poetical heritage.  He recited Vachel Lindsay’s “The Congo” emphasizing that its African metric rhythm foretold the later flowering of the meter and rhyme of later modern poetry.  After the charmed crowd had gone, he came back, greeted us, and told us to meet him the next week at the Ritter-Hickok House at RPI.   
 
It was interesting when we first got to the door I said to Booker, “You knock” and he said, “You knock.”  While we were hesitating, the door opened and a very small white man was standing there.  He was holding the door but it was too heavy for him and just as she stepped in front of him, it slipped and it bumped her.  As she fell, I was standing right besides her and I leaned over and broke her fall.  As I was bringing her back from the ground—feeling very awkward because here I was with a lady’s body and breast in my hand and I am trying to help her to her feet—I realize that she was white.  I was quite flustered and perturbed.  The man said, “Young man, would you help me with her to the car.”  I said, “Sir, I will be pleased to do so.”  Holding her a little bit at arms length, I helped her to the car and came back and, of course, they let us in. 
 
After a few sessions, he told us that he would use three of each of our poems in his upcoming anthology The Muse of 1940.  My friend Simeon Booker, Jr. and I went on and graduated from college.  I went on to Howard Dental School and he eventually ended up writing for the Cleveland Call and Post, a large African-American newspaper.  The Nieman Foundation granted him a fellowship to Harvard based on the excellence of his articles on living in the slums of Cleveland.  The Washington Post hired him as its first African American reporter after he finished Harvard. 
 
In Chicago at about this time, there was a young man getting out a newsletter for a large African American insurance company.  To fill up space he would add local news items.  Much of the local news was covered by the prestigious Chicago Defender and he found out the items were often redundant and bland.  When he had an item from out-of-state colored newspapers, such as the superbly edited Norfolk Journal and Guide and the Baltimore Afro American and the like, people would feed back their enthusiastic interest in the out-of-state colored news.  So, he hocked his mother’s furniture for five hundred dollars and started publishing a digest of Negro news and called it The Negro Digest.  It soon caught on nationally and started making money.  He decided to plow some of his profits into a new, slick publication to be called Ebony Magazine and he brought Simeon     Booker from the Washington Post to help get it started.  The rest of the story is history.  John H. Johnson’s Ebony and Jet started and fanned a publishing empire that is a great American success story.   
 
Interview 5, Track 2 
 
Track time: 1:08:12 
 
In 1988, John Johnson was brought back to the scene of Simeon Booker and my first experience at RPI with Clement Wood, Poet in Residence.  Here at VCU, he received the first Charles G. Thalhimer Entrepreneur of the Year Award.  That same year, my daughter Carmen received the Most Distinguished Alumnus in the Humanities Award and now directs the Grace Harris Institute in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government.  Her son, Kenneth Warren, Jr., VCU graduate Fine Arts in Visual Education 2001, is now a doctoral candidate at the University of Virginia, Curry School of Education.   
 
We have now had three generations of Foster family to enjoy educational offerings from Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Union University.  It has been my privilege to hold faculty positions at both institutions.  I pleasurably enjoyed most of the years of the decade and a half of     transcendence institutional development triumph of these two institutions under Dr. Eugene Trani. 
 
	KCH:	Thank you.  That, again, gives us a history lesson, a cultural lesson, and, I think, a moral lesson all in the course of one letter, which is—I have come to find—typical of you; how you interweave the different threads together. 
	I am going to take a little different jaunt here and then I’d like to come back to your poetry.  One of the things that has struck me, Dr. Foster, is your ability to discuss with many people difficult subjects, particularly in regard to race.  I know that you have been very proud of some of your white ancestors, as you are of the black ancestors, of course.  I have been curious as to how you have found out more about your ancestry.  What can you tell us about that topic, in general?  How does one approach a subject as difficult as shared ancestry between the white and the black communities?  As shown by your letter, one knows that you are acutely aware—you were acutely aware, and probably still are—as to what the proper position was for an African American in our society.  Oh!  I said that as though there was a proper position and I don’t mean that there was, but that is what society has dictated. 
0:02:20		Ada Foster Fisher: Eldest Sibling 
	FMF:	I was the youngest of six boys and, of course, I had three sisters.  Only one [sister] lived, one died at the age of four, and one died right after birth.  The oldest was the first child and was the joy of my mother and father’s hearts.  What happened was, she liked to listen and they liked to talk.  She was the first one to finish high school—I mean she was the first one to finish college.  Interestingly, in 1921, when I was born, she became a freshman in the Academy of Hartshorn Memorial College of Virginia Union University.  For the next twenty-one years, there was at least one of us on that campus, until I graduated in ’42.  She taught there, my brother “Skip” taught there for forty-two years, and I taught there.   
       The interesting thing was that when she got married, she married one of her professors.  He was about ten years older than she was but intellectually they were probably at about the same age.  He later did a memorable work called Negro Slave Songs in America, which was his thesis at the University of Chicago, and that particular year, one of the organizations lauded it as one of the outstanding publications of that year.  He ended up in a pastorate in Huntington, West Virginia.  After spending two years there, he was called to Durham, North Carolina.  The reason he ended up there was the president of Howard University, Mordecai Johnson, had gotten his start when he left a church in Charleston.  Knowing West Virginia, he knew that Huntington had a group of very progressive and affluent Negroes, rather business oriented.  He figured that they could use a person with Fisher’s gift.  It was from there that he was later called to Durham. 
       An outstanding pastor in Richmond at that time, who also played a role in some of the black political organizations, was a Dr. Ransom, who used to be the pastor of First Baptist Church; that is now Dwight Jones’ church.  Ransom took this position at White Rock church [in Durham] and after having been there for a year, he decided that he would want a significant raise in salary.  But, this particular church was filled with outstanding black business men in Durham—that had the largest black business in the world, the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and also the Farmers Bank—anyway, he left word, I think, before he left on his vacation that, when he would come back, he would want a substantial raise or else he would not be able to return.  Well these people were not used to being talked to by somebody like that and so they, as they say, “they peeped at his hold card.”   
       KCH:	Excuse me? 
       FMF:	They peeped at his hold card 
       KCH:	As in a card game. 
       FMF:	Yes.  He ended up being left without a contract.   
       Dr. James E. Shepherd—who founded North Carolina College for Negroes that later became North Carolina Central—he contacted Fisher in a round about way and let him know that they were interested in him.  He never let people know just how much he was behind Fisher’s coming there.  Anyway, Fisher came there. 
       He said that the first thing he wanted to do is to get rid of the mortgage on the church.  Well you know that many N.C. Life and Farmers Bank board members were church members and that is the thing that they laughed at, because they wanted to keep getting that interest down through the years. 
	KCH:	Oh, I see.  Yes. 
	FMF:	They got together and formed a little scheme whereby there would be a challenge to see which family would give the most.  He knew that if a child was asked to give five cents and they gave ten cents, he would have doubled his goal.  If the daddy was asked to give five dollars and he gave six dollars, he had already given more money proportionately.  All of the families began to see how many people they could get that would get first a silver star or next a green star.  They had each side of the street organized and families competing with each other.  It ended up that when they came for the first report—.  They had a big board with two thermometers out there; one was A and one B.  The A group was the trustees and the mucky-mucks and B was the grass-roots people.  The grass-roots people had raised so much money that before they could begin to paint, get that stuff up there, there was sort of a caucus among all of the big shots.  They had to see just how much more money they had to do so that they didn’t fall below the grass-roots group.  They ended up with a successful campaign and they had enough money left over to buy him a new Oldsmobile.   
	I think some of my early influence, from a point of view of morals and integrity, came because when I started high school.  For about three years, I would go there each summer when he would go away to study in Chicago.  The first week that I was there, I went into the kitchen and saw a can of corn beef hash.  That was a little bit expensive, particularly for a large family.  See we would get potatoes and stuff that you could stretch.  What happened was she said, “Put that back.”  I said, “Why?”  She said, “That is church food.”  I said, “What do you mean ‘church food’?”  She said, “This is food people give us.  When we sign our contract every year, we say this is what we are going to live on and anything else that comes in we will see to it that it goes to someone who needs it.”  She said, “We have seasonal workers here and when they are working, a lot of the time, those people bring us food.  When they are out of work and we know they are foodless—we find out, sometimes the kids will see a kid not bringing lunch to school—we will wait until at night and go to the back door, so that we can protect their sense of dignity, and leave groceries and stuff.”  Those same people won’t come to church otherwise.   
       He took one of the old church buildings and turned it into a recreation center that became sort of a proto-type, way back then.  The American Recreation Association gave them its Golden Anniversary Award for the job that he was doing.     
	KCH:	What year would that have been, approximately? 
	FMF:	Oh, about ‘30, in the ‘30s. 
	He was, I guess you would say—.  He developed a ping-pong team and that team would come and play the colleges in the black circuit and they never lost any matches.  It was just a significant contribution that they made. 
00:19:47	Rev. and Mrs. Fisher: Early Influence 
	KCH:	When you were visiting your sister and her husband, did he mentor you?  Did he make it a point to sit and visit with you or was most of this learning just by observation? 
	FMF:	Most of this learning was just by observation because he was busy.  Then there was the dialogue between him and Ada about something—something was in the paper or someone had just called and said something—you’d hear all of this conversation going on.  He’d say, “What do you think of it, dear?”  She would give his point of view and he would give her point of view.   
	Now when he’d go away to study, they would always bring somebody and they would stay there at the parsonage.  I remember the second year there was a guy who had a PhD from Ohio State.  His name is on the tip of my tongue—his son later came and spent some time with us, the son turned out to be a bit of a tramp—but this guy he had a PhD in history and he was the head of the history department at Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Crispus Attucks was the first man to die in the Revolutionary War and he was black.  He died on the Boston Commons. 
	When Fisher came to Durham, the first thing that he did, they did, was to go over and visit Duke University and meet the librarian.  Once he had a chance to talk, he would establish rapport.  Of course, they would be interested in what his research was about.  He stayed—.    
       Then he went to Shaw University and told them that he had just, two years before, left, after about seven or eight years, as Professor of  English and history at Virginia Union.  They said that they did not have a position available.  He said, “Well, I was just hoping that maybe I could keep my feet in it, just a single course.  I am not interested in any pay.”  They said, “All right” and they gave him a course.  Somehow or another, after a few months, one of their professors was injured in an accident and he went in and he took that guy’s load.  At the end of the year, they had arranged a stipend for him.  He said, “This is real thoughtful, but what I rather you would do is get me a young man.  We will pay him and then the two of us can do four times as much,” because he would have someone to work with.  So he didn’t ask for any money.  The next year when they came around—I guess we were really in the throes of the Depression—they just figured they’d take him literally.  He never asked them, not for the forty years that he taught at Shaw University, and he never received a paycheck.   
	KCH:	What a contribution. 
	FMF:	He felt that the church paid him and it was one of those things where his depth of Christianity showed.  Then too, see the parsonage that he lived in—and he had six children—during segregation, it was hard to get accommodations.  There was Shaw University, nearby Raleigh.  There was St. Augustine’s College there, too, and there was North Carolina College for Negroes, and N.C. Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro.  People who were in that general area, whenever they would come and he knew about it, he would extend them an invitation to sleepover.  They would just double their kids up and always have room available.  You see, it gave the children a chance to develop an interesting legacy of meeting some of the best minds in the country.  Of the six children that they have, their oldest one—her name is Florida, named after his mother Florida Amos Fisher and she is a realtor now in Tallahassee—she was the first black student at Dennison University.  My brother was secretary of the trustee board at Virginia Union and the president was Theodore Adams, who at that time was President of the Baptist World Alliance.  He was saying, “You know we [Dennison] are trying to get a nice colored scholar.”  Chris just happened to mention her name and before you knew it, they had contacted her and read her record.  Everybody knew her because she played the glockenspiel. 
	KCH:	(Laughs) an unusual instrument! 
	FMF:	I remember one day, there was a man named Howard Thurman, who was an outstanding black lecturing speaker.  He was considered among the top ten orators in the country.  He was at Dennison speaking and he looked out into the audience and said, “Is that you Flora Fisher from Durham?”  She said, “Yes” and it just made her month that he would recognize her.  He had stayed at their house.  It was just one of those interesting things. 
	Next to her was her brother named Miles Mark Fisher, IV, who was interim-president of the University of the District of Columbia.  He was the one who got NAFEO started, that is National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.  He worked with them for about ten years. 
	The next was Alfred Foster Fisher, who was administrative assistant to the president of Howard University.  The next, his name was Elijah J. Fisher, II; he was a mortician in Durham.  The next one was Christopher Fisher—named for my father Christopher Foster—he was the athletic director at North Carolina Central.  The next one was Ada Markita Fisher, MD, MPH, who finished the University of Wisconsin Medical School and John Hopkins.  She ran against Elizabeth Dole for the Republican nomination for the Senate, about three or four years ago.  She ran for House of Representatives this past year.  She still has her hand in the political part.   
       Those kids had a lot of exposure to people coming through.  Then whenever anybody of any note, if they didn’t stay with some of the more affluent in their homes, the parsonage was sort of like a Do-Drop Inn.     
	KCH:	And they meant it, they really meant it. 
       How often would your families get together?  Did you have family reunions with any regularity?  	 
       FMF:	No, not at all.  But, what happened was there was so much family celebratory activity going on—there would be somebody getting married, somebody dying; we had a lot of relatives—and a lot of times that would bring small groups of us together.  
        In the year 2000, Carmen got the idea that we had better give the remaining five brothers some roses while they were living.  She developed an Elderbration, a celebration of the elders.  The [Richmond] Public Library cooperated with her fully and that weekend we had the library.  In the meantime, she got a lot of graphics.  When we were getting ready that Saturday night to take them down, they said, “Please, leave them up for a week.  We would like for others to see them.”  They left them up for a couple of weeks.  
       It specifically honored the five brothers—no; four of us would have been living then—the four brothers that were living and the four cousins that were living.  Two of the cousins were from my mother’s, the Jackson, side.  There were James Jackson and Alice Jackson.  Alice Jackson Stuart was the first one to try to enroll at UVA and she was the one who started the tuition grant thing.  Her brother James Jackson was an organizer of the tobacco workers in Richmond and, at one time, was the number one most wanted man in America.   
0:20:54		James Jackson (cousin): Labor Organization, Richmond Tobacco Workers 
       KCH:	He was for a period of time. 
       FMF:	Uh hugh.  It was just about the time that I was getting ready to get married that they clamped down on the eleven top members of the communist party.  He went into hiding, but the other ten were found and they put them in jail.  They stayed in jail for two and a half years, but in the mean time, he stayed in hiding two and a half years.  The American Civil Liberties Union finally took the case to the Supreme Court and they ruled that the Smith Act, by Howard Smith from Virginia, was unconstitutional because in the Declaration of Independence it says, “When the government becomes a government of tyranny, it is the duty of the people to overthrow that government.”  They said that because it was authorized by the Declaration, it is proper for him to express his opinion but until you commit an act, it is not a crime.  He came out, but there were placards all over the country for some time.  
       When I went out to Cincinnati, we (with Dorothy) went down to the municipal building to get the marriage license.  While we were walking through, there was this great big picture up there and Dorothy just looked at it and said, “Something about that guy reminds me of you.”  I said, “Oh, is that right?” and I tried to be cool.  I just kept on walking and didn’t get into much dialogue, because I didn’t want her to change her mind!  (Laughter)  
       KCH:	You were focused on marriage at the moment. 
       FMF:	At the time, I was too cool.  She walked over and said, “It says ‘Richmond, Virginia’.”  She said, “You said something about the reason you wanted me to call you at one particular number—.”  I said, “Yes.  All of the family’s telephones were wire-tapped by the FBI.”  The first time I talked to another [family] member, I was talking and somebody said, “Amen.” She said, “What did you say?”  She said, “Somebody is on this line.”  It probably was an FBI agent.  After that time, we had another strategy for communicating.   
       James Jackson was probably the most, I think, the most unsung hero of the Civil Rights movement.  If I brought him in here now, and we were talking about things in general, if I said, “What do you think he is?  Do you think he is a college professor, an Episcopal priest, or a liberal Episcopal priest, or something else?”  You would probably say, “A liberal Episcopal priest,” because his manner and demeanor show no hostility.  He was married to a woman who edited a magazine called Freedomways. 
       KCH:	Freedom-ways? 
       FMF:	Yes.  w-a-y-s.  John Henrik Clarke used to be the editor and she was his managing editor.  He was the first black Eagle Scout in the South.  When he went to receive his badge, the governor came over and pinned the badge on each of the white boys and then, when they got to him, he looked at him and just literally tossed it to him.  He pinned it on his lapel, stepped back, and gave him a crisp and emphatic salute.  The next day he wrote the National Scout Headquarters to tell them that he was leaving scouting.   
	Well some years later Mike Williams wrote a story about him.  One of Governor Pollard‘s grand-nieces read it and she said she cried for three days.  So James called me and says, "Listen I got this letter from this lady what do I do?"  I said, "If I were you, I'd just hold it.  Sit tight before you make a response."   
       In the meantime, I got a copy of the article to James’ sister Alice, who had seen and read a lot, when I told her about it she says, “What’d you say the name was?"  I told her and she says, "Oh!  She works with me at Hope for the Cities!”  So, she was able to contact her.  When Alice died, at her memorial service, she came and had a chance to meet James and to express her sympathy, and also her regret about her grandfather's rude—you know—rude, rude behavior.  James was something special.  
	Now, his real close friend was one-step away from the Supreme Court, that’s Spotswood William Robinson, III.  He and Spotswood Robinson—in a class ahead of me—and Lieutenant Clem Givings—who was one of the first Tuskegee Airmen to die; he drowned in Naples when his plane crashed—they lived in Fredrick Douglass Court 
	KCH:	Okay. 
00:36:41	Richmond Streets Named for Historic African American leaders  
       FMF:	[This is] the area bounded by Overbrook Road and Brook Road, the northwest corner.  It has Dubois Avenue as one of the streets.  It has Langston Court, for John Mercer Langston the first black person in Congress.  The street where Overbrook is used to be named Howard Road for General Oliver Otis Howard, who later became the founder of Howard University.  It was named for General Howard.  When they constructed the community hospital there later, they extended Overbrook and changed the name from Howard Road back to Overbrook Avenue.  But, it was called Fredrick Douglass Court.   
	KCH:	Who had the authority to name those streets, that was interested in naming them after very important Civil Rights leaders? 
	FMF:	Well, at that time, James’s father and the president of one of the insurance companies bought that land and decided to call it Fredrick Douglass Court.  They got together with the city fathers and they, at that time, were amenable to naming Dubois Avenue after Dubois and to naming Langston Court after Langston, because he was the first black representative for the state of Virginia.  They had planned on developing it further, but about that time [A. H.]  Robbins had come in and bought up all that land just north of it.  That sort of limited the amount of space available.   
	KCH:	It is an interesting little sideline in Richmond's history. 
	FMF:	(Chuckles) Now before we moved off and onto that, we were talking about the influence of the Fishers.  (Pause) 
0:39:44		Extended Foster Family: Accomplishments 
       On my father's side, see Ada was a Foster but she also had a cousin named Elsie Graves who was the first person in the family to get a college degree.  Her father was Benjamin Graves, Captain Benjamin Graves, who was a captain in the Spanish American War.  Did I ever discuss him with you? 
	KCH:	Yes, how the school was named after him. 
	FMF:	And Ida Epps was a sister of my father.  She had two children.  Grace Epps’, a retired ninety-year-old librarian, last college tenure was at Morgan State.  When her mother got very sick, she left Morgan, came here, took a little job at Armstrong, and was able to have a lot of influence on some black librarians around.  Speaking about librarians, did I mention anything about Mrs. Florence? 
	KCH:	Mrs. Florence.  Is she the elderly lady that was in the nursing home, and then an article about her was in the library journal—? 
	FMF:	Right.  Grace was in library science and her brother was a surgeon.  He has a son who is an outstanding neurosurgeon.  Interestingly a colleague of mine, who was a prolific author, ended up being the youngest dean of the dental school, named Clifton Dummit.  His son had a glioma.  When I heard about it,—I had never met his son—I sent him a card, said that I had a cousin in New Orleans, and hoped that maybe sometime he might get a chance to meet him.  His name is Joseph Epps, Jr.  So about two years later—I’d heard that he had been in serious condition, his father keeps in touch with me—he writes me back and says, "I’m sorry I never returned your note.  It ended up being Joseph Epps who had diagnosed my glioma and who did the brain surgery.”  
	KCH:	My my! 
	FMF:	When I went out to California to visit my daughter Colette for the holidays, as soon as I got there I called Dr. Dummit and said, “How is your son?"  He says, “Oh, we’ve got a problem.  You see, his surgeon, nobody can locate him."  I said, "Is that right?  Well listen, let me get back to you."  So, I hung up.  I thought about it and thought I might call the girl who was his father’s sister, Grace Epps.  I didn't realize that she had gone to Atlanta, this boy's mother-in-law lived in Washington and she had picked her up and carried her to a family reunion in Atlanta.  So, I began thinking about what to do and I thought of his stepmother [Anna Epps].  I looked her up in my file—she used to be the dean at Meharry and then the professor of microbiology at Tulane.  I got her on the phone and I said, "Listen I'm trying to locate Little Joe."  She says, "Well, I don't know what his situation is but I know that he's coming to Atlanta tomorrow, to the reunion, and I can give you his mobile phone number."  I said, "Oh, thank you so much!"   
       I called Dummit back and I said, “Listen, you can locate him at such-and-such-and-such a number.”  He said, "My god!  You’re the master!"  You see, when I called him up I said "Hello Master!" because he has been a master speaker and a master scout.  I just use it as a marker for him.  So he was saying, "Oh gee, I didn't think—.  The Lord moves in a mysterious ways.  That's it.  It is the love of God."  So, it just one of those little interesting things, how things will happen.   
	On that Epps side of the family, there was one other sister that was Hattie who was Benjamin Graves’s wife.  There was another sister named Ada, whom my sister Ada was named for.  They all taught school.  She used to take Ada with her, when she was a little girl.  She would go up Monument Avenue and she’d often go to the back door of a number of places, where she knew the cooks.  They'd stop and holler in at them and then they’d always give them lunch, maybe, on their way out.  Then when they'd come back in the afternoon, right after dinner, and they'd go in and holler.  She used to go up and visit the confederate home.  That was the time that the family kept up with Captain Sally Tompkins and that particular group.  Other than that I was trying to think of the generally uncovered territory that the—.  
0:47:10		Christopher Foster (father): Name Change 
	KCH:	Now, your father, earlier you had said something about that he changed his middle name at some point in time.  
	FMF:  Yeah, in 1904.  What happened was that over a period of time I would occasionally write a letter to the editor; it was usually someone who had make an error on something historic about Richmond background or if it was something that I felt that would be of interest.  There was a guy who used to be writing sports, named Shelly Rolfe.  He moved up to the general news.  So, one day he just happened to call me and says, “Hey!  I see where your buddy, who they get your names mixed up, has made history.”  I said, How's that?”  He says Doctor Forester's going to be a new board member of the State Highway Commission.”  I said, "Well, that's very nice; he is most ready.  But this guy's family has been making history for some time.  It was from his grandfather that Maggie Walker received the St. Luke organization when it was down in the dumps.  Before that, his great grandfather was a page in the Senate.  Their parents had a dairy farm.  He was very fair when they trashed the flag . . . I told you that story?   
	KCH:	Yes.  Good story! 
	FMF:	That was where we went from there and—.  My father ended up working in the Post Office.  In 1904, he changed his name from Tompkins to Christopher French Foster.    
	KCH:	And why did he select French? 
	FMF:	I don't know.  I think his father had a brother who was kind-of fair.  They never heard much from him but he left and went to Washington and he married a French woman.  I guess that's where the French name came from. 
	KCH:	The association might have captured your father’s attention. 
	FMF: 	Right.  And I have a brother named Wilbert French Foster, you know.   
	KCH:	So it continues on through the family legacy.   
0:49:53		Development of African American Intellectuals 
	FMF:	Yeah.  I just received a letter from—.  The guy who wrote it, he who used to be a professor here and he's at George Mason University.  He wants to do just a short interview with me because he's doing something on—.  The Fredrick Foundation has given him a fellowship to do something about—I don’t recall what you specifically call it—but it is on black intellectuals and their development.  He said [Laughs], “I thought you might be able to throw some light.”  I do know one point of view and there probably might be something that I might be able to say that would be in concert to that effect:  When you go past color and you delve into what we call quasi invisible.  If you look past color, people who have got something sort of special—.  Let me tell you what happened Friday.    
	KCH:	Okay 
	FMF:	I went over to Virginia State to speak to the Sigma Pi Phi Boule. 
       KCH:	The Sigma Pi Phi Boule.    
       FMF:	Yes, that was the first black fraternal organization.  It was started by couple of students from New York and Pennsylvania who were graduate students.  Then later some of the undergraduate fraternities started forming.  Anyways they have a pretty large organization.  The fellow asked me if I’d just speak to them.  I wasn't in the position to refuse because the year before last they had given me the Oliver Hill Man of The Year Award.  So I said, “Do you have anything in your general literature so that I can pin-point some stuff?”    
	Well, one of the guys had called me about four or five years ago, I had been giving him some informational stuff that I just happened to know off-the-cuff—from my sister in the early years to some of the people who were in school with her, and, you know, the group    So anyway, in the literature he sent, I did see the nine founders of the Richmond group and each one had, in some way, affected my life significantly.  So, when I got to talking, I just told them that I wanted to touch on something and we started off with the first one and then I went right down the line.  And the—I’m trying to think of what specifically, the thing that jogged me into this.  We were talking about, um, this intellectual type of thing.   
	The fella’ who came later, who inspired me, his name was Thomas Henderson, the middle Henderson school.  He was president of Virginia Union.  The only non-minister president and the best president they ever had.  But he was the guy that, when I was a freshman in high school, they didn't renew his contract because they found out that he was trying to organize the teachers to get equalization in salaries.  See my brother was my first chemistry teacher and after the first day he said, “We had thirty-two pupils but there was only space for twenty-eight.”  So, I left with my buddy George Mallory who retired as Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry from the University of Southern California.  He helped to get the Watts Association started and the area recovered.  We went to Tom Henderson.  He was quite a teacher and one of the key witnesses in the Brown vs. the Board of Education case.  
	KCH: One of the things I noticed when I was transcribing your last interview was that you speak a lot about the sense of responsibility that the black dentists fostered though their state organization.  Their sense of responsibility to the community, the Meharry graduates and the Howard graduates.  That also was true of people in other professions, that is obvious.  There was a great sense of responsibility.  When I think of how—.  I am only familiar with your daughter Carmen, but it would appear that she also, that that sense of community service is instilled in Carmen.   
0:55:27		Family Values: integrity, honesty, loyalty  
       Tell me a little about your family life.  You've talked a lot about the development of the intellectual side for you.  What do you think about, how do you pass those things down to your children?  Did you follow the same behavior patterns?  The exposure?  What was the most critical do you think? 
	FMF:	Well I guess that if I was to use one word to symbolize my parental emphasis it would be integrity, also honesty and loyalty.  I think that because they had had a lot of exposure to that in both sides of the family, my father particularly coming up under the Glasgow idea, the Joseph Anderson idea; it even started with Joseph Anderson.  Later, as I began to read about it, I could see why Papa was the way he was and I could also see why I could never detect any hostility from him.  He wanted us to sort of avoid the hostility thing.  The only thing that I can ever remember about the way that he might have had a little negativity was when his sister had to be examined by Doctor Tompkins and he charged her.  She had finished her schooling and, since she was going to go on, she had a physical examination.  He said, “Ada, you’re an adult and you’re earning now and so I’ll have to charge you a normal fee.  And so she said, “Well that's the way I want it.  I like to be independent.  I like to be able to make my own decisions.” 
       When she mentioned this to my father, he was quite upset that he had charged her because he thought that she should have had professional courtesy.  Now, not because he felt that because he happened to have been his uncle—it didn’t have anything to do with that—but, Chris Tompkins had learned all of his obstetrics from his grandmother who was a legend in midwifery.  He felt that she really should be entitled to something because of that. 
	KCH:	Okay.  So let me get this straight.  Chris Tompkins had learned from his grandmother, your father's grandmother—. 
	FMF:	Jenny, Virginia Taylor Foster. 
	KCH:	Whose name was—?	 
	FMF:	Mama Jenny.   
       KCH: 	Mama Jenny.  All right, I just wanted to clarify. 
       FMF:	Right.  Of course, when you take an old timer like that, see Jenny had been around for years and always in the neighborhood.  She had seen a lot of everything and, of course, the doctor was smart to use her.  Other than that, see that was on the Foster side—.  On the Jackson side, they were tied up with the Archer family.  There was—ah.  I’m trying to think of Archers—.  I wish Carmen were here because she has looked up most of this stuff anyway and it would be on the tip of her tongue.   
       You see there was an Archer Anderson tied up with the Joseph Reid Anderson family. 
	KCH:	Archer Anderson being his entire name? 
	FMF:	Yes.  I remember someone was telling the story.  I think he was saying that one of the Archer’s had killed himself.  There was an Archer Anderson named for him, and an Anderson man had killed himself.  When he told my father about it, my father said, “Yeah I heard about it and I read about it in the paper and I just couldn't believe it.  You know it takes a lot of nerve to take a pistol and kill yourself.”  And he says, ‘Oh no!  Oh no!  He didn't use a pistol he used a shotgun!  [Laughs]  They always did things in a big way!”    
	KCH:	We were talking about how your father did not ever want you to display hostility, or that it was so important to him.  How did he feel then, for example, how did he feel about some of the protest poetry that you wrote?  Your father lived though what year?  When did he die? 
	FMF:	He lived from 1880 to 1970. 
	KCH:	Okay, so he was living during the entire Civil Rights Movement and in your youth you related the poetry.  Did you discuss that?  Did he read your poetry? 
	FMF:	Yes, and he enjoyed it.  He could—.  The funny thing about him—.  Not one of us went into politics.  A lot of the times there were people who might make suggestions to you, you know.  I don't know.  We always sort of took the attitude that he did:  you don't have to be in the limelight in order to be doing the service.  He was the treasure of the NAACP for something like twenty-five years.  My brother Skip took it over when he gave it up.  He was aware of the injustices and indignity that went on, but he just rolled with the punches and kept his eyes open.  He kept on going on.  But, it was something that he had sort of picked up because of everything.  Give it a chance.  
       Maybe somebody who has some historical background will say something and I tell them the story of when Anne Hopson Freeman, who wrote the story about the Hunton Williams law firm, The Style of a Law Firm, when she first saw me she said,  “I’ve heard that you had some folks who used to work in the Tredegar.”  I said, “Yeah.”  She said, “Well, tell me this.  There was a black newspaper editor named John Mitchell, Jr., how could he write such a glowing editorial on the passing of Joseph Reid Anderson?”  She said, “It was beautiful.”  I said, “Because John Mitchell was a realist, but he was also a person who saw thing as they were.  He was writing about him not as a politician but as a man.  Because he knew that Joseph Anderson when he first wanted to compete with northern industry, he decided to purchase him some workers.  And he went on the record as to the servitude of his slaves.  Throughout the thing, it was servants.  Also, if you worked an eight-hour day, they kept a record of it and if you worked overtime, you were paid.  He suggested that you save your money and purchase your freedom.  So that is the reason why they had such a tremendous output of production, because nobody was there who wasn’t happy.  Once they found out that you were depressed they got rid of you.  You see, because he had a job to do.  So anyway, that was the reason why he wrote such a glowing editorial about him because he was as outstanding an editor as Joseph Anderson was an outstanding manufacturing producer.  Then she said—this was the next time I saw her when she was at the display of the Old Broad Street Station.  They had this super extravaganza—she was saying, “I have a golden headed cane at home that has been passed down to me.”  I said, “Yes, that was given to him by the colored workers.”  She said, “How do you know that?”  I said, “Because my father mentioned it and it is also in the book on the iron industry of Virginia by—what was that woman's name?  Anyway, they have some boxes of hers that are second only to Faberge’ jewels in the collection at the Virginia Museum.  She has a book on the Virginia iron industry; I think that she was John Pratt’s sister.   
	KCH: 	I can look that up and insert the name.  [Kathleen Bruce, Virginia Iron Manufacture in the Slave Era.]   
	Your father—.  During the Elderbration, that Carmen had arranged several years ago, there were several articles in the paper, in The Richmond Times Dispatch.  In one of them, you comment on you father.  Well actually, it reads, “Foster said he's tried to live by the three tenants his father emphasized.”  Would you mind telling us what those three were? 
	FMF:	Yes.  “It is nice to be important but it is more important to be nice.”  The second was, “There's no right way to do a wrong thing.”  And the third was, “Community service is the rent that we pay for being here on Earth.” 
	KCH:	And you have followed them, so greatly!  Now when we talk about community service as the “rent we pay for being here,” when we first greeted each other today you were speaking of—I have to recall this—an attorney in Dallas that had received recognition for his contribution to the community.  You don't need to go into many details, but tell us a little bit about this gentleman.  I think it shows how community service can be—community service in the boardroom, community service in your life, and in the lives of your children and family—has gone far beyond that, [rent we owe], to impact on the community, in a positive way. 
	FMF:	Well, when we had gotten married and moved up to Byrd Park one neighbor family was Ernest and Matthew White.  He was an old Virginia Randolph High School basketball player and she lived in Westwood and became a nurse.  She had three children.  Westwood was an area with a lot of proud tradition because an attempt was made to take it by eminent domain and give it to a powerful developer.  But they took it to court and it reaffirmed that stand.   
       Now in the neighborhood, there were some other children but those three kids had apparently come up under a strict religious regime.  One of the boys ended up being a Methodist minister and the other daughter became a schoolteacher.  Further, up the street in a house, I had a nephew and a niece, who lived about three or four doors up the street from them.  Ron White, who like I said, became the outstanding Dallas legal fellow, number one out of twelve thousand, in Dallas.  He gave up his judgeship to enable him to not have any conflicts to do things to bring folks together and otherwise.   
       My brother Wendell's son became the first one of the first two black Times Dispatch Humanitarian Awardees—I forget what they call them but anyway—he and Thomas Cannon—the guy that gave away money—they were cited for their roll.  Wendell would encourage and give scholarships to students who were poor; who he felt that once they got their feet the other stuff would take care of itself.  Of course, Thomas Cannon is sort of like a legend.  Wendell’s sister was the financial aid director at Maryland, later Governor Schaffer’s aid. 
	KCH:	And her name is? 
	FMF:	Thelma Eloise Foster.  She later became secretary of the budget for the State of Maryland and is now dean, or the equivalent to, dean of finance for the University of Maryland Medical School.  She went there.  The Republicans took over and moved them, but she says she has a job that is much better because she doesn't have so much political slant.  Those are just a couple people off of that block. 
	KCH:	Now would their children, the children you've mentioned, Ron White and Thelma Eloise Foster.  Wendell’s son's name is—?  
	FMF:	Wendell Foster, Jr. 
	KCH:	Wendell Jr.  Are they of the same age group as Colette, Carmen, and Francis?   
       FMF:	Yes. 
       KCH:  	You made the decision during desegregation that Carmen would go to TJ [Thomas Jefferson High School], didn't you? 
	FMF:	No, the city made that decision. 
	KCH:	Oh, the city made the decision.   
	FMF:	Because right on our street on the south side of the street they would go to TJ on the other side of the street they would go to Maggie Walker. 
	KCH:	Okay. 
	FMF:	That was how the line had been drawn.	 
	KCH:	And there were no options if Carmen had not wanted to go TJ?  Because at the time she was one of just a handful of African Americans. 
	FMF:	Well see there had only been one at TJ the year before; then she came the next year.  She accepted the challenge and some of the people that had taught her at West End School wanted her to go.  When she went, it was sort of a challenge.  She didn't have to bused because I would take her.  When she got there, she was selected as the school mascot.  She was called ‘Little Jeff”.  She made the adjustment, you know.  Of course, she had a lot of white friends over by Byrd Park.  About twenty-eight years ago, one of the girls who finished with her had moved.  Her name is Sheila Carapicio.  I never will forget Sheila because the first day I went up this Sheila—she had met her the day before—this little girl was coming down the hall and she says,  “Is this your daddy?” She looked up at me and jumped up and kissed me. 
	KCH:	Oh my, how nice! 
	FMF:	[Laughs] Yes.  She a professor of political science at the University of Richmond and has done extensive travel in the Middle East.  Her folks used to run a place called—um—Flare that sold quality merchandise, women’s wear, that type of thing. 
1:16:11		End of first CD 
 
[CD 2 of 2]   
Interview 5, Track 3 
Track time: 0:46:07 
0: 00:05 [Resume interview] 
       KCH:	This is the second CD of the May 15th interview. 
0:00:12		Dorothy Chase Hisle (wife): Meeting and Marriage  
	FMF:	About the time of the half century, around the start of the fifties, my father was a member of the Friends Association for Colored Children and occasionally I would go pick him up.  There was the lady in charge of the nursery named Mrs. Estelle Clark and she was the wife of George Clark, who was a radio personality, at the time, and also the manager of the Booker T. Theater.  One of those days, I had engaged in a conversation with Mrs. Clark and she said she had about twenty people in the nursery.  I said, "Well I would like to offer my services to you to examine those kids and to help prevent problems later on by giving them information and stuff that they could take home.  And so I did.  
	Well the next year, my father was getting ready to leave the Friends and they asked me to serve on the board, which I did.  Later, I became president of the board and as a result I had an opportunity to visit a Child Welfare League of America convention in Washington.  I had gone up to take in the scope of things.  When I was there, I met a fella' who used to be on Virginia Union's dream basketball team who had become deputy director of public welfare for the state in Pennsylvania.  It sort of opened my eyes to the golden opportunities that there were in social work.   
	One of the friends of Mrs. Clark and a helper in the nursery was a Mrs. Alma Brown, wife of a local dentist.  When they had a regional social work convention in Richmond, she invited me over to her house to meet three social workers who were staying there.  There was something kinda special about Dorothy that stood out.  That represented really the start of our uninterrupted entanglement.  She was the director of the YWCA in Augusta, Georgia and had a Masters degree in social work from the Atlanta School of Social Work.  Well after awhile, when we couldn't shake off these intervals of being away from each other, we ended up getting married in August of 1951 and she moved to Richmond.  In '52 Carmen was born, in '55 Frankie was born, and in '60 Colette was born.   
	When we first moved, we lived next door to the family home in a duplex owned by my older brother Richard.  My brother Kermit lived downstairs.  In '54, we purchased a home on Rosewood Avenue near Byrd Park that was being vacated by whites.  (Pause)  About the same time or soon thereafter—no, just before—my brother Kermit had his daughter Leilia. 
0:06:50		Kermit Foster (brother): Career at the VA and Mars Candy Company 
       Did I mention his Veterans Administration Experience?  
	KCH:	You did one morning when we were having coffee over at the church.  But please tell, for the record. 
	FMF:	All right.  Well Kermit, Sr. went into the service and came out with ulcers.  He got a job at the patent office, the regional patent office.  Somehow or another, some politician in Philadelphia found a big space and moved that branch there to Philly and those folks who wanted to keep their job had to go.  But because he had veterans’ preference, they had to find him a job here.  So they did: at the VA [Veterans Administration].   
	When they moved him over to the new place, they put his desk out in the hall with a screen and things standing around to keep people from seeing him.  And he asked one of the brothers, “I wonder what the screen was for?”  He said, "That's to keep people from seeing your color."  So he said, “Well, I’m going do something about it.”  And he said, “Well you’re a dammed fool.  Your pregnant wife isn’t teaching.  She ain't working and if you ain't gonna' be working, you’re gonna' be up the creek!”  But he said, “No, there's a principal involved here.”  He said, “Man you’re crazy.”  But he said, “No, I'm going to do something about it.” 
       So he came over and talked to my father and he said, “Kermit whatever you do, even though your chances aren’t good, you know I'm going to be with you one hundred percent.  But, just be sure that you do it with a sense of dignity.”  So they sat down and wrote a letter to the VA and [Chuckles] sent a copy of it to the local branch of the NAACP.  Two days later, they came down from Washington and moved that screen.  He was on, like walking on eggshells for a while.  But he still kept his eyes open and was making some solid inquiries and he got an opportunity to transfer to the Defense General Supply.  That’s where he spent thirty honorable years.  
	In the mean time, the baby that his wife was carrying, she retired the first of last year after spending twenty-five years as head of the Podiatry Department of the same Veterans Administration Hospital.  
	KCH:	At the library department? 
	FMF:	No, podiatry.   
	KCH:	Oh, podiatry. 
	FMF:	Yeah, she's a foot doctor. 
	KCH:	That would be Leilia. 
	FMF:	Right. 
	KCH:	I would assume that Kermit was very pleased when she became head of the Podiatry Department. 
	FMF:	Yes, it was just irony, real irony.  His son ended up being an outstanding football play, small football player, at Norfolk State.  He was working as a laboratory instructor when he was offered a job with Lever Brothers, promoting a tooth products and that sort of thing.  And someone came to him, some marketing person, saying that they were trying to find a black person to work with the Mars Candy Company.  They asked if he'd help them and he said that sure he would.  After he saw the stats and everything, he went to his boss and said, “This guy is asking me to help them but I wouldn't want to do anything behind your back.  But, this is a job that I would really like to try for myself.”   
  And so he says, “Well Foster, I want to tell you something, I really appreciate your honesty.  I'm going to do everything I can to help you and you keep your eyes open for somebody that you can do something with to get them ready for your position.”  So he ended up getting that job.   
       In the mean time, he had established an idea of developing track athletes.  Well, there was an old garage near the shopping center, the Towne Shopping Center, and he asked the guy what he wanted for it.  It was out-of-sight and he forgot it.  But, something must have happen—this guy must have got into some kind of difficulty—and he came to him and said, “Listen, um, you showed some interest—.”  And Kermit said, "I'm not interested any more.”  But, when he told him what he wanted for it, he talked it over with his dad.  They said, “No, we can't make it.”  Then they made him an offer that was lower and the guy grabbed it.   
       So, he had it renovated and used it for receptions for weddings, group gatherings, and the like and he also got a franchise for bingo.  When you have bingo, you have to give that profit to a source.  Yeah.  It’s a non-profit thing.  A certain percentage of that you have to give.  Well what he wanted to do is to take that money and use it for the Norfolk Olympic Club, to develop athletes.  So then, the Mars Candy, they got interested in what he was doing and they cooperated with him.  He would take athletes all over the world, Chile, Russia, anywhere. 
       KCH:	Really. 
       FMF:	You see, so many guys come out of college now—.  One of his bonanzas was that there was a fellow at the University of Richmond from Africa.  Right after he was through, he didn't have anything and so he arranged to keep him over for a while and about four months latter he won the gold medal in the five-thousand meter.  The next Olympics, he had a guy that came in second in the high jump.  They were interested in people who wanted to stay in shape and that sort of thing.  
	Anyway, he just recently retired, about the same time as his sister, after twenty-five years with Mars.  Mars was very good to him.  He had an office right in his home.        
	One day a girl with the Virginia Council for the Arts was trying to find some money.  So Carmen said to her, “Why don’t you talk to Kermit Foster at the Mars Foundation.  You know, they have funds sometimes.”  So they arranged for her to have this interview with him and they came back and said, “Listen, we don't usually get these enquiries from groups like yours, how did you happen ask us?”  She said, "Well, my friend Carmen Foster suggested you as a possible source.”  And she said, “Kermit Foster.”  She said, “No, Carmen Foster, but she is related to Kermit Foster.”  She said, “Okay, just wait a minute.”  She went in the back and came back about ten minutes later with a check for twenty five thousand dollars. 
	KCH:	Oh, my goodness! 
	FMF:	So they made an exception for her.  [Laughs] 
	KCH:	Obviously, from the influence of and respect for him [Kermit].  
	FMF:	Yeah, he made a lot of good contacts and with people who, when given an opportunity, were willing to give others a chance 
0:16:20		Dr. Francis and Dorothy Hisle Foster: Marriage, Early Years 
	KCH:	I would like to go back to your wife Dorothy’s family.   
	FMF:	One Mother's Day, I met her in Cincinnati.  They were coming there from Covington, Kentucky.  That is just like south Richmond, across the river.  For some reason, I don't know, I popped the question that day.  Anyway, we were married in Cincinnati and we came back to Richmond.  
	Interestingly, the executive director of The Friends Association for Colored Children, after about nine or ten months, came to me and said, “Listen, I talked to members of the personnel committee and they are willing to give me a year off.  I understand that your wife has a Masters in Social Work.  It would be ideal if she could cover this during the time that I’m gone.  Of course, there would be a conflict of interest because of your presence and if you would be willing to step aside.”  [Laughs]  I guess I was taken back, because I would be glad to step aside, you know, to get her a little extra work.  [Chuckles]  But I said, “Mrs. Brown it just happens that two days a go my wife came to me and told me that we were expecting a child.”  And so, that was that.       
       A little bit later on, I had a chance to meet the lady who was going to take over.  She was from Philadelphia and she was a real pro.  I had just become president then, too.  She said, “Have you ever been to a Child Welfare League of America?”  I said, “No.”  She said, “Well, our—what’s it called—sponsored donor is Winthrop Rockefeller.”   
       So on the (unintelligible); I met my former classmate, behind me at Virginia Union.  It was on my way up there with Carmen—she was about five or six months old—that I got my first ticket, speeding ticket.  I was going through Stafford County—doing about seventy-five or eighty miles an hour—trying to make some time because we started late.  A policeman pulled me over and asked to see my driver’s license.  I always have a bill in the fold of my wallet and, of course, when I take it out it falls on the ground.  He says, “You’re loosing something.”  So I reached down, grabbed it, and put it in my pocket.  He said, “You know, I don't think that I have much concern for you personally but with a wife and a fine little baby like that, it just doesn't make any sense.”  And I said, “Officer, you are just as right as you can be.”  And he said, “Do you know how fast you were going?”  Now, I think that he was expecting me to say, “No, I wasn’t—.”  I said, “I know that I was going over seventy five.”  That kind-of caught him off guard.  He said, “Yes.  I tell you what, that's careless and reckless driving, but I'm just going to charge you for exceeding the speed limit.”  I said, “Thank you very much!”  
	There is one thing that I know when I'm around an officer: that that they are in charge and they need to be respected.  When you say “Sir” to them, it makes a difference.  That’s the problem with many kids today; they don't.  It is “No Sir” or “Yes Mame,” you know.  So, that was the situation there. 
	KCH:	Did your wife consider getting back into the social work field after that time?  I know that she was busy raising the family.   
	FMF:	Yes, yes she did.  At that particular time, I think the family was a strong deterrent.  At that time, you see we were living next door to my parents and there was so much going and she would be in the position to maybe help with shopping and stuff like that.  Then just busy taking care of me, and my hustle-and-bustle.   
	KCH:  Your life has been very full. 
	FMF:	Yes, and she was tied up with the Methodist church because the guy who had played for the wedding was a guy from Cincinnati who had been the head of band and choir at Maggie Walker High School, but who finished at Oberlin.  In his class at Oberlin, there was a girl whose father was on the school board and was an assistant superintendent.  I think that was how he got the job, but he was real talented and he ended up becoming assistant superintendent.  Later he went on and got him a PhD in Education from the University of Virginia.  Well that's just about what's what. 
0:22:42		Dr. Foster’s Poetry 
	KCH:	I would like to end with—that is if you would like to, of course you can decline—do you have a favorite poem? 
	FMF:	Well I’ll tell you the one that got acknowledged.  In 19—it must have been within the last fifteen years, I guess—I was attending a meeting of the Virginia State Dental Association, in Roanoke, and I was on my way upstairs when Dean Harry Lyons—who was the dean of the dental school—said, “Dr. Foster!”  I said, “Yes?”—I turned around, went back, and walked over to him—and he says, “This is Dr. Abram Korbren, the president-elect of The American Dental Association.  I wanted him to meet you.”  So I said, “I'm so happy to meet you sir,” and as I shook his hand, my eyes were glued on his lapel.  He had a pin there; it was the Statue of Liberty.  He says, “I See my Lady has caught your fancy.”  I said, “She has indeed.  First time I had anything published in print, it was because of her.”  I said, “It was a poem that was published in PM.”  —an unusual publication that had no advertising.  It was really backed by Marshall Field; he paid the tab.  Max Lerner and Ralph Ingersoll were the editors.  I had read the poem by Emma Lazarus on the statue of liberty [“The New Colossus”]: 
       “…Give me your tired, your poor;  
       Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;   
       The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,  
       Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,  
       I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” 
        
 And I said, “I wrote this poem called ‘To a Certain Statue,’ and it said:  
       Dear mother of exiles, 
       Help me understand, 
       Are you carrying that torch, too,  
       For a Jim Crowed man? 	  
	 
And so, he [Dr. Korbren] said, "You know, I can empathize with you, Dr. Lyons and I, our folks were originally from Lithuania.  I remember my father telling me that when they came over in the boat, it was as if they had put them in a cocktail shaker and shook them all the way over.  He said that when we got to the New York dock, and the boat stopped, someone said that the reason why it is so dark is because we are in the shadow of a great statue and as we tried to walk around, we couldn't walk because the boat was level and we had been disoriented so much.  Then later, when they got off and got situated, they ran into some of the same type of stuff that you dealt with, with segregation.”  I said, “Well, Dr. Korbren, it has been a pleasure meeting you and I hope you have a pleasant stay while your here.”  
       The next morning I got up, I went to the dining room, and the headwaiter said, “Dr. Foster, Dr. Lyons is in the other dining room and he'd like you to come over and eat with him today.”  I walked over to the other room, sat down and, as the waiter asked me for my order, Dr. Lyons reached into his pocket and handed me this little tan coin envelope.  He said, “This is the gold pin of the Statue of Liberty.  Dr. Korbren told me to give it to you.  It was given to him on the occasion of the Centennial of the Statue of Liberty.  It was given to him by Lee Iacocca.”  [Laughs]  So I thanked him very much and I have it somewhere among my little treasures and items of interest.    
       Now, we got into this story when you were asking me—.  
	KCH:	—for your favorite poem. 
	FMF:	Yes, favorite poem.  That was, just about it.   
	When I was with Clement Wood at Virginia Commonwealth University, he used three of my poems and three of my buddy Booker’s poems in his anthology.  The first item was “Trees,” a poem called “Trees.”  [Recites poem]   
	I’ve seen giant Redwoods 
            telling the age of time. 
	I saw the Charter oak 
            protecting the scroll of freedom.    
	 I remember the blossoming cherry trees 
            glorified by the tiny hatchet of Washington.      
	But I’ve seen Weeping Willows in Dixie  
	     bow their heads under the sagging weight of 
            human, black, burning bodies……….. 
	So I have grown to hate the leafy things.  
 
	About the ‘giant Redwoods telling the age of time’, I remember when Carmen had been to a session somewhere for the Kennedy School and this guy, who was speaking, said, “Is anybody here who can tell me which word has all of the vowels in it?”  Finally, she raised her hand and he said, “Yes?”  She said, “Sequoia.”  He said, “What do you know about it?”  She said, “I know its Cherokee.”  And he said, “You are the first person that I've ever addressed who came up with the answer to that.”  And she said, “Well, my Father had a poem called ‘Trees’.”  
	And I never will forget, when we moved into a new house and she must have been about five or six years old—.  Some years later, in her room, I said, “I'd like to get you a nice Redwood cabinet to put your stuff in, to keep it.  What I am going do is that I read where I can get me some Redwood.”  So I got the Redwood, brought it home, measured for the dimensions, and put it in.  I was telling her then that the Sequoia was a giant Redwood tree and she became familiar with the background of the Sequoia.  I was telling how the Sequoia, how they used the Indian alphabet to sort-of make their codes and decipher everything during World War II.  	Well that was one of the poems.  The other one was—it was really in memory of Clem Givings—(pauses).  I'm trying to think what the title was—“Sonnet to a Black Eagle’s Mate,” the black eagle representing the Tuskegee Airman.  It said, “I give an hour to you each night my love—.”  
       Can I have a look at that?  (The interviewer has a clipping from the Richmond Public Library containing several of Dr. Foster’s poems.)   
       KCH:	What Dr. Foster is looking at is a clipping from his bibliographic file at the Richmond Public Library.  It has a number of poems. 
       FMF:	(recites a portion of his poem, unintelligible) 
       It was called, “Sonnet to a Black Eagles Mate.”  That [clipping] came out of the second edition.   
	KCH:	I would think that the poem, the sonnet—.   
	FMF:	Did I give you those?  [Referring to the page of poems.] 
	KCH:	This came out of your file at the Richmond Public Library. 
	FMF:	Yes, its gotta be somewhere.  We'll have to go down and double check.  You know I called Carmen and I said, “Carmen, where are my copies of The Muse?”  She says, “I don't have them.”   
	You know we had a real tragic thing that hit us about two to three years ago when we had that big rain.  Before we had the big thing, I got messed up because when I heard some noise—we’d had some terrific rain—I went downstairs to see what it was and there was a geyser coming up through my toilet.  I grabbed some clothes and just stuffed and stuffed and stood on the toilet seat, but the water just kept coming.  Then later, it moved down and there is just a little step lower where all my stuff is and I just knew.  I had just brought home my stuff from school and other stuff and had set it on the floor getting ready to get it organized.  I lost so much stuff.  I lost so much stuff.   
	KCH:	That is a tragedy. 
	FMF:	But if she doesn't have them, I hope that they are tucked away somewhere.  I called Virginia Union because I thought I gave a copy of The Muse of 1940 to Virginia Union and I want to double check back there again this week.   
	KCH:	It could be that it is in your file [at the Richmond Public Library], I would be glad to double-check. 
	FMF:	No, I'll check.  I'll be down there sometime tomorrow.  
	There was a guy named William Simpson who was a librarian there for a number of years.  Unbeknownst to me he would clip anything that he saw that was related to me or us.  Every now and then, I would get something and I would just bring it to him to show him—leave him a copy, you know.  When we got ready to have the Elderbration, there was so much stuff that had accumulated in those files.  It goes to show what slowly happens down through the years.   
	So when I spoke to the Boule of Sigma Pi Phi, among the fraternities were two or three of my professors, one was Arthur Davis.  Arthur Davis in 1942 left Union to go to Howard.  It was he who had the group called The Literati and he took that poem and sent it to a guy who was a contributing editor to P.M., and he was also with the Associated Negro Press.  He was the guy who, two days before graduation, came into this restaurant before graduation. 
	KCH:	Yes, the same gentleman!  (See first interview, 20 January 2006) 
	FMF:	Right. 
	KCH:	It is very interesting how these same people come in and out of your life and you have influenced them and they you. You really have lived a rich life. 
	FMF:	 Um-hum, um-hum, um-hum, I agree. 
0:36:20		Future Plans: Love for Local History 
	KCH:	What do you still want to do?  You are semi-retired.  You are working at MCV. 
	FMF:	I'm trying to make this decision right now. 
	KCH:	You are? 
	FMF:	—because what I would really like to do is get back into some reminiscences.  I will probably miss the students but I think it is about time, because I know that [Laughs] times are getting shorter. 
       I talked to that group on Friday.  It has reached the point where—(pauses) I guess you'd say that your memory is pretty sharp, but unless you actually sit down and write it.  I hate to get in front of an audience, a big group, to read anything.  If I can talk, and I surprise myself because—once I started putting things aside, I was surprised—by how much just one little basic thing, how easy it was for me to talk about these people who had influenced me.  To some of them, I guess, it was interesting hearing one or two little facets of these persons.  They’ve probably had heard their names.  The first person on the list was a school physician whose name was Christopher Columbus Cook.  His family was pioneers in the mortuary business for colored in the Tidewater.   
       KCH:  	The mortuary business? 
       FMF:	Yes, the funeral business.  He went to Howard, finished, and then came as a physician to Richmond to practice.  He was on the first line at the founding of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, which happened to be the fraternity that I happened to have joined.  He came here as a school physician.  His name was Christopher Columbus Cook and I never will forget, I lived next door to the corner at Henry and Clay there was Jewish grocery here (indicates next door), first house on that adjacent corner was Dr. Cook’s office.  I would get ready to go to school at about a quarter to eight and I'd go out on my porch and wait, waiting to hear his screened door slam.  You see? 
       KCH:	Yes. 
       FMF:	So when I hear the screen door slam, I would walk slowly down to the gate and go running across the street.  Of course, he would see me and say, “Hey!  You going to school?”  After about two or three times, he realized it was a gimmick, [Chuckles] and so we would meet.  I enjoyed listening to him because he would always have something to say in the morning.  He had probably read something in the paper.  He had probably read that Mussolini had just invaded Ethiopia.  And I remember one morning he said, “I was thinking about changing my name.”  —since his name was Christopher Columbus Cook. He said, “What do you think about that?”  I said, “That's something to think about.”  —now that they'd invaded Haile Selassie and things like that.  But he never did change his name.   
	He was an understanding physician and he also taught one or two health classes.  His wife was a schoolteacher.  She taught sewing.  She was probably the most fashionably, conservatively dressed woman in Richmond.  She made her own clothes, Mrs. Willie Cook.  They didn't have any children and they had a very nicely appointed home on that corner.   
	And then, we had a fellow named Dr. Calloway.  His wife, Alice Calloway, was a legend here for her work on the school board and on the Richmond Planning Commission.  Her brother Delegate Ferguson Reid was the first Representative just before Doug [Wilder] became the first senator.  He took over the practice right after Doctor Cook had passed.  He used to be our newsboy, Dr. Calloway.             
	KCH:	When you think about writing your reminiscences, would you go into stories such as these?  About the Cooks and the Calloways—?  
	FMF: 	Um-hum, Um-hum. 
	KCH: 	That would be so valuable.  Absolutely. 
	FMF:	Because it's interesting how many people you can touch when you become a little bit more general.   
       I never will forget my brother Wendell went to Piedmont Sanitarium—he had tuberculosis—for about a year and a half.  When he came out, they told him to get him a job out in the fresh air.  He became an insurance agent under Doug Wilder’s father.  Did I tell you that story? 
	KCH:	Yes.  
	FMF:	It was just interesting how much stuff he remember that he shared with me about Doug's father and about the agency.  Of course, he ended up in the Postal Service.       
	I ran onto a picture of him.  He had a braided uniform cap on with “Richmond Times Dispatch” on it and he had this bag.  They had just opened the Central National Bank, it imbued class and dignity, and a new discretion took over this boy.  He was about a senior high school when he had this uniform.  Down through the years all the other boys carried the Times Dispatch, but I was the only one who carried the News Leader. 
	KCH:	You carried the afternoon paper. 
	FMF:	Right.  Did I tell you the story about The Commonwealth Club?   
	KCH:	The story about the young woman who was waiting tables?  No, that was a different spot.  No, that was the Woman’s Club. 
	FMF:	The Woman’s Club.  I had my picture on the front of the News Leader when the Commonwealth Club caught on fire.  We heard the fire engines and I followed them, ran in that direction.  We ended up standing there with a boy who was just finishing his run [morning newspaper].  See I was going [to school] from twelve to four and this was in the morning.  I was standing there on that corner in those pictures that came out in the News Leader.  The guy had taken a wide-angle and used it in the Richmond News Leader.  So in the evening, when my brother Chris came home he said, “I know where you were this morning.”  I said, “Where at?  How you know?”  He said, “Come here.”  He showed me the paper saying, “Nobody else has got skinny legs like you!”  [Laughs]  I had another picture on the front of the Times Dispatch when they did the Elderbration story.  So, I covered two papers.  
	 Interestingly, some years later I had a patient who had come back from New York   because things were so tough up there.  He said, “Yeah, it's tough up there.”  And I said, “Where'd you used to work before you went there?”  He said, “I used to work over at The Commonwealth Club.”  I said, “Yeah, I never will forget when I had my picture in the paper for that fire.”  He said, “You know what?  That day there was a guy that had this picture that was so valuable.  I thought about it and I ran up there through that smoke.  I went into his room, took that picture down, put a blanket over it, and brought it downstairs.  I came on out, went across the street, and, in front of the alleyway, I put it over there.  I was really busy trying to help some of the people there ‘til the fire was over.  So finally, I looked up at this guy and said, ‘Listen, I got something that I want to show you.’  So I took him over to the alleyway and I threw back the cover and showed him that picture and he cussed me out for saving it.”  And he said, “I've been living in New York for something like twenty years and I've heard all kind of language and cussing.  But from him, I heard some cussin’ that I've never heard before.  He called me this-that-and-the-other.”  And he said, “I was looking for a nice big tip, you know.”  So I turned around and said to him, “Well he probably”—see this was during the depression—“He had insurance, so he probably was the guy who set the fire.” 
	KCH:	Oh, my! 
	FMF:	Yep, could very well have been.    
	KCH:	After putting the pieces together and all—.   
       Shall we say ‘finished’?  Thank you so much. 
	FMF:	It's been my pleasure. 
       KCH:	This is very valuable for the archives and for the community.  We appreciate your time. 
0:46:26		End of Second CD 
End of Interview #5  
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Dr. Francis M. Foster, Sr.		  
 
 
Interview 5 of 5		39