Mary Lou Foster

Mary Lou Foster, nee Gregory, of East Orleans, Massachusetts, passed away in her sleep at Harbor Point Assisted Living Center on the morning of February 7th. Mary Lou was born on September 23rd, 1932, in Ironwood, Michigan as the eldest child of Della Sobolewski and Louis Gregory. She attended St. Ambrose High School where she was prom queen. She studied english at the University of Michigan where she met her late husband, Caxton Croxford Foster. They lived in Ann Arbor and Akron before settling in Amherst, Massachusetts for 20 years. They moved permanently to East Orleans in 1985. Mary Lou also earned her Masters in Special Education from the University of Massachusetts and helped many children with learning difficulties learn how to read.

Mary Lou had a great passion for living and engaged in many hobbies including quilt making, knitting, embroidery, gardening, swimming, ice skating, cross country skiing, reading and listening to opera. She was especially fond of making jam with wild berries, bluebirds, roses and the wild flower jack-in-the-pulpit. She had a great wit and was an excellent companion. She was supremely brave and strong. She will be sorely missed but we are happy for her to be relieved from the mists of dementia and to be reunited with those she loved and lost in her long and rich life.

She is survived by her three children and their families: Ann, married to Peter Van Dyck with sons Maxwell and Jackson, Greg, married to Sue Duncan, and Prudence, married to Michael Walter with sons Dakota and August. We remember wild berry picking, playing bridge, rook, cribbage and scrabble, ice skating on home made rinks, doing crafts, cookouts at Nauset, the Caribbean, making Ukrainian Easter eggs and blueberry pies. Also surviving are her step children Nedra Hecker, nee Foster, and Alex Foster and their families, her brother Frank Gregory and his wife Greta, her late brother Lou's wife Lois and her nephew Steve and her nieces Nan, Paula (Mary Lou's god daughter) Vicky, Merideth and Janifer.

She will be buried with her late husband, Caxton, in a private ceremony in East Orleans.