DEBORAH CHRISTINE FOSTER

Deborah Christine Foster (née Foley) died peacefully Wednesday, July 7, 2021 after a long illness.
Deborah was born September 27, 1949 in Brooklyn, NY to parents William and Anne Foley and spent her childhood in homes outside Chicago, in Morristown, NJ and Manhasset, NY. By the time Deborah left to study theater and drama at Emerson College in Boston, she was already an accomplished singer. While in Boston, she featured in many stage productions and eventually landed a spot in the groundbreaking improv troupe the Proposition. She was noted for her wonderful voice and her love of making people laugh. And anyone who knew her can attest that her ability to entertain was a lifelong skill she honed until the very last.
It was in Boston Deborah met her first husband, Kenneth Farrell, and the two settled for a time just over the border on a farm in as Québec where they semi-successfully raised goats and chickens and generally lived a flower child’s dream. (And to her children especially she would clarify: “I was a flower child. Hippies were dirty.”) After resuming life as American citizens, the two settled in NJ with their two young sons, Evan Luke and Liam Henry. And it was here that Deborah would spend most of the rest of her life on Enos Place in Ho-Ho-Kus, just a few blocks away from her sister Janeanne “Nan” Mitchell and her husband Tom and three children Kimberly, Megan and Allison.
After Deborah and Ken parted ways, Deborah did what all single moms in affluent, suburban New Jersey communities do: she got a night job as the lead singer of a country western band, spending her weekends gigging with her an outfit called Hickory Wind. And it was during one of these shows—at a raucous, sometimes hazardous honkytonk known as Top of the Hill—that she met her soon to be husband, Robert “Bob” Foster, a suburban cowboy nursing a fractured leg, an injury he befittingly sustained in an actual rodeo. The two fell in love and were married and it wasn’t long before daughter Calla Jane made the scene.
In Ho-Ho-Kus, with Bob by her side she raised her three children and imparted to them a love of learning and also that desire to make others laugh (see above). Deborah was also a stickler for grammar and vocabulary and heaven help the fool who broke the rules with the whoms and the whos.
As her children established themselves in school and work, Deborah took on a second career as a real estate agent, selling many properties throughout Bergen County, NJ, no doubt using the skills she developed as a performer to charm many a client and close the deal.
Later, Deborah, Bob and Calla would move to Franklin, Louisiana where she would spend the rest of her time. A lifelong keeper of four legged creatures, Deborah volunteered many hours of her time to the Humane Society. Her animals meant so much to her and she had a special voice and manner for each of them over the years. (So it would seem her love of entertaining was not relegated to human people, but also her furry people.)
As Calla and her husband Tony grew their family, Deborah took so much joy in being “Mimi” to each of her grandkids, doting on each just the right amount and continuing to marvel at their development and at Calla’s skill as mother.
It is a comfort to each of her surviving family that Deborah now has some peace and some ease and that she can once again be with her beloved son Evan to sing more harmonies in the kitchen somehow.
Deborah is survived by her husband Robert, her sister Nan (Tom) and her children Calla (Tony) Trosclair and Liam (Robin Farrell) and grandchildren William, Emmaline, Azalea, Everett, Milo and Lucy. Deborah was predeceased by her parents Anne and William and her son Evan.