Jeanne Robert Foster

I was always going to write a book about the place where I grew up, with its unique history, characters, landscapes and lifestyle but now I won't bother.

I recently "discovered" Jeanne Robert Foster and enjoyed the other books she wrote, but this was eerie reading late at night. I sat up in bed, recognizing the families, if not the individuals, I was reading about. Everyone knew everyone else in our neck of the woods if they were not closely related, which most of them were, by blood or by marriage. I knew the places she talked about and the photos confirmed the remaining foundations of old ruins that I knew in my childhood as well as the house that later belonged to a family member. I even knew 98% of the families on the 1876 County Atlas.

While I cannot, sadly, claim kinship to the author, she has written a story that is so much better than any tale I could tell. The historical detail combined with photos will also give a clearer window for others to peer into that time and place that gradually is disappearing completely. Although I was born when Foster was in her golden years, life had not completely changed from her time and place. It had been called, due to the dismal demographics in the 1960s, the Appalachia of the north. To this day there is no cell phone service and no reliable internet there. Elders had told me the stories they knew of the farming, mining and lumberjack days. Strangely enough, these many years later after her death, Jeanne confirmed a story my grandfather told me as a child, one that I thought was a myth.

We love to read stories of the Antebellum South, the Wild West, and other places and times in American history. Who can dismiss the popularity of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House " series? (Laura's husband, Almonzo, by the way, grew up in upstate New York). The compilation of history, photos, poems and stories is even better, because it is not complete fiction, although some of the names have been changed, probably to avoid the ire of Foster's neighbors.

Noel Redinger -Johnson is to be recognized for her talent in bringing the heart and soul of Jeanne Robert Foster into the story with little nuggets along the way. In particular, I could relate to the story of the neighbor who told Foster's mother, " ...it IS a pity your oldest child is so homely. There's not much chance in the world for a girl like that." To which her father replied, "...she can always be a hired girl. People still want good cooks and hired girls up here in the Adirondacks." Foster consulted her mother's mirror with the fear that so many young girls face even today, even outside of the Adirondacks, but her answer shows the strength of Foster's spirit: "The story of what I DID would make a book." Or several.… (plus d'informations)

Jeanne Robert Foster has been gone from the earth for fifty years, but she has not been completely forgotten. Her books are historically important and at her gravesite small stones and flowers are still being left in tribute. Her insightful and soulful writing gives us a glimpse into a time and place that came and went, the 1800s in the Adirondack Mountains. Weary veterans of the American Revolution, new immigrants from Europe and other Americans saw the new frontier as a place to get a fresh start, working in lumbering, mining or farming and building the new nation, as people were drawn into the little towns that would grow for a time before settling into historic complacency.

Although many of the residents eventually had to leave this part of the country before they achieved their dreams, there must have been something in the water. The same dot on the map that produced Jeanne Robert Foster (nee Julia Oliver) also gave our nation Mathew B. Brady and Eben E. Rexford, artists who were certainly her Neighbors of Yesterday. From a beginning that is charitably called “humble”, she checked off accomplishment after accomplishment, achievements that would not have appeared on anyone’s wildest fantasy bucket list, especially on one of a poor country girl in the 1800s. Life continues to be a challenge for many trying to earn a living in the Adirondacks, most of them choosing to measure their quality of life by a different standard than those who seek fortune or fame.

For a glimpse into an interesting and little-known time of American history, reading her biography is a requirement along with the words she put to paper. She describes the lumberjacks, Native Americans, hard existence and graveyards that I remember or heard stories of in my youth while I was growing up just a few miles away. My own ancestors were her close neighbors and she mentions a graveyard containing my family members, so it is also a window into my personal history. Time had not changed very much in the Adirondacks in the century after she was born there. I’m sorry that I never got to meet this accomplished lady in her lifetime, although our years on earth overlapped a little. This woman of immense will and accomplishments takes her final rest in the mountains. As she says through the voice of The Old Lumber-Jack in Exile, she has as her marker her beloved pines, but those she left behind also gave her a stone monument, a legacy along with her thoughtful and thought-provoking words.… (plus d'informations)