ALUMNI HALL
Four generations of Fosters (clockwise from bottom): Bud ’38, Randy ’59, Ethan ’18, and Shawn ’87.
“ You know how much Mount Hermon wanted to charge me as a local kid? $100. I didn’t have $100. I told them, ‘I’ve got no money.’ They said, ‘Come anyway.’”
Going Way Back Since the 1930s, the Foster family has had a stake in NMH.
More than 80 years ago, Frank “Bud” Foster showed up at the Mount Hermon School for Boys. He was 15 years old, working in a grocery store in nearby Bernardston, Massachusetts, and his boss suggested he check out the school. “You know how much they wanted to charge me as a local kid, a day student? $100,” Foster says. “I didn’t have $100. I told them, ‘I’ve got no money.’ They said, ‘Come anyway, and work in the school store.’” So Foster worked off his tuition, graduated — and then bought the store. “We sold books, skis; we strung tennis racquets, installed ski bindings,” he says. “My wife pressed pants. My mother made apple turnovers and I sold those, too. During the
44 I NMH Magazine
war, the potato chip man stopped coming because we weren’t buying enough, so I went out and bought a popcorn machine, and sold popcorn to the kids. Paid for itself in three weeks.” Foster’s son Randy ’59 spent much of his childhood on campus — “because my dad owned the store,” he says. “I always thought Mount Hermon was my school. From the time I was 5 years old, it was my dream to go there.” Eventually, Bud Foster started Foster’s Supermarket in nearby Greenfield, Massachusetts, which became a local institution, as did Foster himself. Over the years, as he established himself as a businessman and community philanthropist, seven family members followed him to NMH: besides his son Randy, five of Foster’s 15 grandchildren have attended the school, including Randy’s son Shawn ’87; and three of Foster’s great-grandchildren, including Shawn’s children, Ethan ’18 and Natalie ’20. It’s a family legacy that goes back to the era of Elliott Speer, the Mount Hermon headmaster who was murdered in his study in 1934. Bud Foster was 16 then. After the murder, Maeve Whittle Moody, D.L. Moody’s daughter-in-law, advertised for a babysitter for her two grandchildren because she feared that whoever was involved with the murder might turn their attention to her family. Foster applied for the position and was invited for an interview. “I went over to her place in Northfield,” Foster recalls. She said, ‘How old are you?’ I said, ‘16.’ She said, ‘I want somebody 18 or 19.’ I said, ‘Ma’am, anything they can do, I can do better.’ She asked, ‘Can you sing?’ I belted out a song. She said, ‘You’ve got the job.’”
PH O TO : S H A R O N L A B E L L A - L I N D A L E