1896
Nathaniel Ladd Foster
Nat has been and is one of the successful business men of our class. As he has attended few if any of the class five-year reunions, few of us have known much of him since College days, and so a brief sketch of his career is most
Nat is the son of George A. and Georgia Ladd Foster. He was born February 19, 1874, in Concord, N. H., and lived in Concord until he graduated from College. He was married in June, 1904, to Florence Walker of Brookline, Mass. They have two daughters, Mrs. William D. Burrows and Mrs. Arnold Robinson, and three grandchildren, William Hard 3d, Deborah Hard and Ann Burrows, all living in New York City.
He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1899, practicing law in Boston until 1908. In 1907 he and Carleton Ellis established the Ellis Foster Company to conduct chemical research. Their first plant was at Larchmont, N. Y., but they soon moved to Montclair, N. J., where new laboratories were built.
This research work has been under the technical direction of Carleton Ellis, who became a very well known inventor of chemical products and processes. The Ellis Foster Co. developed these inventions and those of other chemists in their employ.
When these inventions and processes were considered of sufficient value they were patented and licensed or sold to chemical manufacturers including duPont, General Electric, Standard Oil of New Jersey, American Cyanamid, Hercules Powder, Rehm and Haas and the American successor of I. G. Farbenindustrie.
Nat has been general manager since the company's inception and president for over 20 years. He is still president but partly retired for the past few years. He has also been connected with several other research and manufacturing companies, including Chadeloid Chemical Cos., Butterworth-Judson Co. and others.
It is always the busy man who can find time for civic affairs. Nat has been active in the Montclair Forum as director of finances and then chairman of the Board of Directors. He was partly instrumental in establishing a New Jersey branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.
His hobbies are tennis, golf and swimming. If he continues these sports actively he must be younger than his 77 years.
Nat must have prospered financially, as he has an apartment in Montclair, a bungalow at Nassau Point, Peconic Bay, Long Island, and a winter home in Coconut Grove, Fla.
To Nat and "Hike" Eldred go the class "Oscars" for outstanding work in research and industrial development.
One of Nat's hobbies is writing short plays. Two have been published by Samuel French. One of these, Please Omit Flowers, has been performed in about 100 towns and cities. A three-act play was given for a week by the Wharf Players of Provincetown. Several others have been performed by amateur organizations but not published. So here is to the playwright of our class.
This sketch is adorned with a photograph of Nat as a junior in College and also with a recent photograph.
Nat, who was a humorist in College, submits his autobiography in mildly satirical verse:
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Please list to the tale of Nathaniel Ladd Foster, Who never in rain saw the old town of Gloucester. As a matter of fact he emerged in New Hampshire, Which certainly isn't a land of the vampshire. From earliest childhood this lad was quite vain, And usually gave his few friends severe pain. He thought that all compliments gilded the lily, When the actual truth was the boy was quite silly. This child was related to Mary B. Eddy, In spite of the fact he's been so unsteady. In high school he once was named captain and pitcher:
As inept a player was never than whicher. At Dartmouth he played on a nine-stringed guitar In a manner that scarcely suggested a star. In Law School at Harvard he barely got by; His knowledge of law was all in your eye. Just why they admitted this man to the bar Is a mystery no one has fathomed thus far. He practiced some years but never learned how To distinguish a contract or tort from a cow. So, leaving the law and old Boston behind, He decided that chemistry might be more kind. He surrounded himself with some talented guys, Who did all the work while he gazed at the skies. By some hocus pocus he got him a wife, A lady with charm and ability rife. So let us rejoice, though 'tis strange, we must say, That a man without merit can still be so gay.
1896 Fund Contributors
12 Gifts (Participation Index 71). Total gifts: $1,236.63 (229% of objective). HARRY D. LAKEMAN, Class Agent.
Chase, Stephen Couch, Benjamin W.1 Cox, Isaac J. Cox, James A.1 Cox, Louis S. Duffy, Walter F. Eldred, Byron E. Fletcher, Robert H.2 Foster, Nathaniel L. Ham, Thomas C. Jaquith, Charles A. Lake, George E.
Lakeman, Harry D. Stark, Henry H.8 Weston, Charles A.4 MEMORIAL GIFTS FROM: 1 Harry D. Lakeman '96.2 Sister, Miss Mary A.Fletcher.3 Louis S. Cox '96.4 Income from Charles A.Weston Fund.
NATHANIEL L. FOSTER '96, whose career is reviewed here, as a student and as he appears today.
CLASS AGENT HARRY D. LAKEMAN '96
Secretary, 159 Park Ave., Arlington, Mass. Treasurer, 21 Forest Rd., Cape Elizabeth, Me.
