Adam Lemay Foster
This article was written by Kim Foster. Adam Foster was her great-uncle. Enjoy the pages that Kimberly put together to honor her uncle!
When Suzy, one of the magazine advisors, suggested to me the idea of doing a personality article on my great-uncle, Adam Foster, I jumped at the chance. Before I got in Foxfire he was just my Uncle Adam, but after I really got "into" Foxfire, I began to realize what an interesting person he was. And after he started telling me about his ancestors, I realized they were my ancestors, too. That realization made me very proud.
Since Adam is my uncle, it may be that I'm a little prejudiced, but I think he's super. He's the kind of person who, when people meet him, they automatically want to listen to him. I noticed that when Jolynne, my interviewing partner, Suzy and Margie, another advisor, talked with him.
Adam had eight brothers and sisters, six boys and two girls. His older brother, Frank, was my father's father, and Adam is my great-uncle. He and his wife, Aunt Hattie, have four children; three boys and a girl. They have nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He and Aunt Hattie were married fifty-four years as of May of 1979. He's seventy-seven years old.
They live in a white fram house with pastures on the sides and in front. Usually there are horses in them. Before they moved into this house, they lived in a two-story log house on almost the exact site. It was the old family house. When you walk into their house, your ankles are attacked by Aunt Hattie's tan-colored chihuahua. It's about the size of a rat and it wears a coat when it goes outside. On the hill behind the house is a long barn. In the pen at the side of the barn there usually are at least six or seven dogs, and at the back of the barn are sheep of all sizes.
In transcribing the tapes, I found myself so engulfed in some of Adam's stories that I couldn't wait to finish one sentence so I could go on to the next one. For example, Adam's father's name was Osborne Calloway Foster, but everybody called him "Good". We got him to tell us the story of the origin of that nickname. As a matter of fact, Adam didnt know his father's real name until he was a teenager. His stories and recollections span the time of my great-great-great-grandfather, who came from Ireland and settled in northern Georgia, all the way to the present. Uncle Adam has kept our family history well.
Kim Foster
Article by Kim Foster
with assistance from Jolynne Sheffield
On With the interviews....
The way we kept records of things was that my daddy and my uncle that lived down here across the road told me about the lives of our ancestors. And I didn't forget it, either. I couldn't forget them things. I was a boy, and I can remember lots of those things that Uncle told me.
My great-great-granddaddy come from Ireland, and settled over there in Rabun County, next to the La Prade's Fishing Camp. In a little holler over there, he built a little log cabin. Right there's where he started his family. And, he raised a family there, 'til they got a pretty good size. He and his old lady didnt get along. And [so] he told his oldest boy, "I'm gonna have to leave. I cant stand to stay with her".
So, one mornin', he got up and walked out, and he ain't never been seen yet. And my great-grandfather was a pretty good size boy [then], but he was still just a kid, and he took over. There was four boys. And they started making a livin'. My great-great-granddaddy never did show up no more. He was gone.
Well, my great-granddaddy and his brother almost got in a fight over a horse that they had bought together. Didn't get in a fight, but it was close to it. All the younger one, Bob, (my great-grand-daddy's brother) wanted to do was ride the horse on weekends, and my great-granddaddy, he wanted it to work, to make the patches and fields. So, [the younger one would] take the horse and ride it and keep it home all the time. [My great-grandfather] told him, "I've got to have that horse to work." He said, "I can't put up with you a' runnin' my horse and ridin' it on weekends. I've just got to have the horse to work. Now let me tell you something, you better bring that horse back."
And he didn't bring it. The next day, my great-granddaddy went over there and Bob was gone. So he asked his mother, "Where's Bob at?".
She said "He's gone somewhere."
He said, "Well, you tell him to put that horse in my barn tonight, or I'll wash my hands in his blood." So he went on back home. Bob brought the horse and put it back in the barn.
The next Sunday my great-granddaddy and his wife went off somewhere, left their little house. [While they were gone, Bob] and his mother went over to my great-granddaddy's house, and took all his furniture, (just a chair or two and a bed and what cookin' pots they had), and throwed it out in the yard. Everything out of the old house. He knew who done it, my great-granddaddy did, and he just went back [to his mother's house] and his mother was there, but his brother wasn't. He'd always get away. So he just went in and pitched what stuff they had - his mother and his brother - out in the yard. And pitched her out on top of it. He said, "I don't want to see him no more."
Well, my great-granddaddy went back over to his house, and he took what clothes he had and put it on the horse and he come to Scattaway right up here. And that's where he settled, right up here about two miles from me. He lift the whole family there. Moved out. Brought his wife and horse and his bed. They didn't have nothin' much to bring. Brought it all on one horse. You can just 'bout figure just enough to barely sleep under.
So, he come on and settled up here. Done well, raised sixteen children. His wife died when he was about fifty-five years old, and left him with that bunch of children. But he raised them all up. He done pretty well, my great-grandaddy did. He done pretty well.
One day he was a-cuttin' wood in the yard. Back in them days, the fences was on each side of the road and it was just a six or eight feet-wide road, wide enough for a wagon and that was it. So he saw somebody ridin' down the road to his house, and he looked up that way. Fine horse the man was ridin'. And he kept choppin' on his wood, and kept lookin' and lookin'. The man got up pretty close and my great-grandfather recognized that it was Bob. Been thirty years and he hadn't seen him. That was his brother. And Bob got up to about twenty feet of him and my great-grandfather throwed that choppin' axe at him. Bob wheeled that horse and left, and they never did see one another no more. No sir. Bob went back to Union County. "Course you didn't have to go far then to get away from here. He had been over there for thirty years. Never been to see his brother and his brother didn't think much of him when he come. He run him off. Them folks back then meant just what they said. If they told you somethin', they meant it. They wouldn't say this, that and the other, then not do it.
My great-granddaddy was up at his house and this old feller, Corn had some hogs that got in my great-granddaddy's field. Said he had a ten-rail fence and them hogs was just layin' the fence down. Well, he went over there and told Mr Corn about his hogs. It was a mile or two over there, and Mr Corn was just standin' in his field. He said he told him, "Put them hogs up or I'll take care of 'em."
Mr. Corn said, "Well, I will. I'll put 'em up." So my great-granddaddy went on back home. And the next day, they was back in again. So he just turned around and walked over the mountain to old man Corn's. And he told him, "Mr. Corn, I told you to put them hogs up, and keep 'em up. If they're in my field when I get back, they'll not get out, I'll tell you that." He said, "I'll kill 'em, just as fast as I can shoot." So sure enough, just as soon as he went back to the house, he shot what didn't get away before he got through shootin'. They was a big bunch of hogs. He shot part of 'em, [and] just left 'em layin' there. Old man Corn never said a word about his hogs. That was just the way people was then. They meant business when they told you somethin'.
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