A Celebration of Life service and a party to honor John Lumpkin Foster, Jr., remarkable son, husband, father, grandfather, friend, and community servant, will be held in the spring. Date and time to be announced later. John's ashes will be interred next to Emylie.
In the early evening Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022, Mr. Foster completed his journey on earth surrounded by the love and laughter of family and close friends.
Born Dec. 11, 1936, at home in Roswell, John was the son of John L. Foster, Sr. and Lula Roberts Foster. His mother always considered his birth a bit romantic because he entered the world the day that King Edward VIII of England abdicated the British throne for the woman he loved. In addition to his parents, John was preceded in death by his sister, Nan Foster Freemon; his beloved wife of 47 years, Emylie Blackwelder Foster; and his great late-in-life companion, Alice Todd Foster. He was also preceded in death by his aunt, Alda Roberts Lyons, who lived in the home with John and his parents, and Kitty Martin, beloved friend, who worked in the Foster home and helped rear little John.
John grew up in Roswell and attended Roswell High School where he excelled academically and ran cross-country track. He worked in his father's drug store, The Roswell Soda Company, after school and on weekends. The rest of the time, he was out hunting, fishing with his father, or tramping through the woods he so loved.
After graduating high school, John attended Oglethorpe University for one year and then transferred to the University of Georgia. He graduated from UGA with a BS in pharmacy in June 1958. The next day, on June 10th, he married the love of his life, Emylie Palmer Blackwelder.
John and Emylie met when John's college roommate introduced the two. For Emylie, it was love at first sight. John was slightly more coy. He called Emylie that weekend. He asked her if she was free for the evening, and when she said, "Yes," he said, "Good, my friend needs a date." That happened exactly once. After that, he realized she was the one and they dated exclusively until they married.
John passed his pharmacy licensing exam and he and his new bride moved to Marietta, Georgia where he worked through his internship at Dunaway Drug Store.
When he was finished with his internship, he and Emylie moved to Smyrna. They bought their first home and John went to work as a pharmacist at South Cobb Pharmacy.
In March of 1960, they welcomed their first child, daughter Sara Lucinda (Cindy).
In 1965, John was offered an excellent opportunity at a drug store in Seneca, South Carolina. They chose to move because they owned a lot near Seneca on Lake Hartwell and loved to go there camping.
In December 1966, John and Emylie welcomed their second child, a son, John Lumpkin Foster, III also known as "Jay."
In early 1967, John was once again offered an excellent opportunity to practice pharmacy in Cleveland. Warren Doc Griffin asked him to come to work for him and take over the drug store when he retired.
John and Emylie decided Cleveland was a good place to raise their young family, and so in the fall of 1967, they moved to Cleveland and settled in for good.
John worked at Griffins until the early '80s. He decided that he’d rather be a full-time pharmacist rather than run a business so he eventually declined the offer to buy Griffins when Doc Griffin retired.
He moved across the street and spent the rest of his career working with Ray Black at Cleveland Drug.
John was one of a disappearing breed of small town pharmacists. His home phone was listed in the local phone book for after-hours emergencies. Several times a week, he would get calls during dinner by concerned patients, and at least once a week, he went back in the middle of the night to fill a prescription for a sick patient. Many nights on his way home from a 12-hour day at the drugstore, John would run by the home of a housebound patient and deliver medicine.
John retired at 62, and he and Emylie took their dream trip to Scotland with the National Geographic Society.
In 2003, Emylie was diagnosed with lung cancer and John tenderly nursed her until she died in April 2005.
John did relief work for other pharmacists and worked in his garden, but with both children living out of state, he was lonely.
Several years after Emylie's death, John met Alice Jones Todd. He married her the following October and they were married nine years until she passed four years ago. He also tenderly cared for her during a number of serious health crises. It was during this time John was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
When Alice died, John moved back into the home he and Emylie had built in Sautee. By this time, his daughter Cindy had moved back to Georgia to be near her father, and he lived in the family home with Cindy and her husband, Mike.
John managed his Parkinson's pretty well until a broken hip three years ago severely limited his mobility, and by late Saturday evening, this horrible disease had robbed his body of so much, it could no longer contain his magnificent spirit.
John had many interests. His primary interest, even at the end, was taking care of his family. He loved to bird hunt (mostly to watch the dogs work), fish, camp, hike, and collect funny stories. He was an avid UGA football fan his entire life and was over the moon at another National Championship.
He was also the family genealogist and had found and proven a number of lines in his family tree. John also excelled in botany, nurturing the lady slippers that grew along the driveway. A walk in the woods with him was a pharmacological botany lesson. He could identify numerous local plants and tell you their usefulness in the practice of medicine.
He was a former member of the Kiwanis Club in White County and acted as Key Club advisor at White County High School in the late 1970s. He served on the board of directors for the local senior center's Alzheimer’s respite group. He was an elder and a deacon in the presbyterian church and he and Emylie were founding members of the First Presbyterian Church in Cleveland. The first worship service of that congregation was in the living room of John and Emylie's home. He was also Emylie's wingman in her Laotian ministry. She did the legwork and he provided the moral and financial support. He had a local Meals-on-Wheels route that he worked for close to 20 years. Even after he married Alice and moved to the Atlanta suburbs, he drove back to Cleveland once a week to deliver meals.
Later in life, John was tickled to be accepted into the Sons of the American Revolution through his ancestor, James White, a soldier at the Battle of Kings Mountain.
John is survived by his daughter, Cindy (Mike) Foster Grace; son, John (Julie) Foster; and grandchildren Foster Grace, Emylie (Simon) Grace Kasmir, John L. Foster, IV, and Walter Foster. He is also survived by Alice's children, Scott (Paula) Todd, Billy (Carolyn) Todd, Anne (Amber) Todd, Claire Todd, Hannah Todd, Justin Todd, and Braeden Todd. He also leaves behind nephews John (Marcia) Freemon and George (Colleen) Freemon and numerous beloved cousins, particularly the branch known as the Texas Foster clan. In addition to family, he leaves many, many friends to mourn his loss.
The family is particularly grateful to Hospice of Northeast Georgia, nurse Julie and Elaine, caretakers, Rita Gooch and Kay McClendon, and dear friends, Stephanie Henslee and Marty Palmer. All worked to help make John's last days on earth as happy and as peaceful as possible.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, friends consider making a donation in memory of John and Emylie to the Laotian Ministry at the First Presbyterian Church in Cornelia. Checks earmarked for the Laotian ministry can be mailed to the church at 469 N. Main Street, Cornelia, GA 30531.
To share a memory or to leave the family a condolence, please barrettfh.com.