By Mary Whitfill, News Staff
A vigorous activist for her neighborhood, resident Joyce Foster made a name for herself in the Northeastern University community by fighting vehemently for the wellbeing of the Fenway.
Foster, 84, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on Aug. 10 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
A strong voice in the negotiation of the recent Institutional Master Plan, as well as in other major Northeastern expansion projects, Foster worked to ensure that the Fenway community would only benefit from the university’s enthusiastic development.
“Joyce was a fierce advocate for her neighborhood, she cared deeply about the relationship between the Fenway and Northeastern,” said John Tobin, vice president of city and community affairs at Northeastern. “She was involved in all kinds of nonprofits and basically anything that had to do with quality of life. She wanted to know what these places could do to help make the lives of residents better.”
Her most passionate project associated with Northeastern was that of the university’s Fenway Center, a converted St. Ann University Parish property on St. Stephen Street. Despite her stance against the sale of the property to Northeastern, Foster was not discouraged by the university’s acquisition.
“There is no way for us to impact what happens at the university, but the university impacts what happens in our neighborhood, strongly,” Foster said in 2012. “So if there is a regular, consistent, ongoing communication with high level university people to keep reviewing what’s happening in the neighborhood, to keep reviewing what the university can do, what the community would like it to do.”
Still determined to turn the sale into a positive transaction for the members of her community, Foster worked to ensure that the new space would be a benefit to community members as well as Northeastern. Today, thanks in large part to Foster, the Fenway Center is open to the public.
“As a former city councilor, I know a lot of people I referred to as ‘Joyce Fosters,’” Tobin said. “They are the people who are always there and always effective, people who know what they stand for. She did what an effective advocator does.”
Foster was born in Winchester in 1929 and attended Simmons College until 1948 when she moved to Washington, D.C. In 1959 she moved to Hull, Mass. and earned her master’s degree in education from Harvard.
“She was a very educated woman and so hospitable,” Tobin said. “She was an avid reader, loved foreign films, she was an artist and would go to Mexico in the winter to do her art there. She was a very smart lady.”
After her 1992 retirement from a state job, Foster created a consulting firm and became involved in community activism. She was a regular contributor to the neighborhood’s online paper, the Fenway News, and was an active member of an area short story discussion group.
Foster joined the Fenway CDC Board of Directors in 2002. In 2005 she was invited by former state senator Steven Tolman to be on the Northeastern Community Task Force and in 2010 moved into a co-op house in Fenway.
Foster is survived by her sons Pacey, Ned and Matthew, sister Priscilla Hein, seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
“She didn’t have a funeral, the family chose to instead receive people at her home,” Tobin said. “When I was talking to her son he told me that his mother didn’t want a funeral or a service, she wanted a party. So that is what we are going to give her.”
Foster’s “party” will be held on Sept. 15, a day Tobin says the city council will be declaring “Joyce Foster Day.” The event will start at 6 p.m. in the Fenway Center at Northeastern, a reflection of her persistence and service-oriented personality.
